How one school in Ireland is trying to curb phone use among kids
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This story was produced by our colleagues at the BBC.
A survey by nonprofit organization Common Sense Media shows 42% of children in the U.S. have a phone by the age of 10. And numbers like this are causing concern for educators, including a group of headteachers in Greystones, a town in Ireland. That group was so worried by the increased levels of anxiety among children using smartphones and social media that last year they asked parents to sign a voluntary pledge to delay buying smartphones for their children until at least the age of 11.
“We could see phones creeping in with nine-year-olds and 10-year-olds,” said Rachel Harper a headteacher at St. Patrick’s primary school. “And the children started going on WhatsApp, and we were, as teachers, dealing with kids being left out or kids being upset.”
Harper said social media use on smartphones is also affecting pupils negatively. “We would have a class going swimming. They would be around the age of eight and nine, and already they were very body-conscious,” she said. “You wouldn’t let your child open the door to a room full of strangers and leave them in that room on their own. And unfortunately, that is what’s happening when they have a smart device.”
She added that before the pledge was introduced, nearly all the pupils in their final year had a smartphone. Now, only a handful do. So, do the kids feel as though they’re missing out?
Rachel, a student at the school, doesn’t think so. “You’re missing out on something when the whole school has it. When no one in this county has it, that means you’re not missing out on anything.”
Most tech companies offer parental controls on their apps. And Meta, which owns WhatsApp and Facebook, says it’s responded to criticism by putting new policies in place to protect young people. Still, many of the parents at the school say they feel relieved they don’t have to choose between giving their child a smartphone, or leaving them socially isolated.
Stephen Donnelly, the Irish health minister who also happens to be a Greystones parent, thinks the initiative is a great way to reduce some of the harm he says is being done to young people. And according to him, governments are starting to force tech companies to do more.
“The best thing that they can do is make sure that they’re heavily regulated, fully transparent, that they bring in proper age verification,” Donnelly added. “We’ve an important moment in time now to work together, and I think we will look back at the last five or 10 years in time with horror. I think we will look back and say this was the Wild West.”
Donnelly said he would prefer apps to be age-restricted to users under 16, but many popular apps, including ByteDance’s TikTok and Meta’s Instagram, only require people to be 13 years old and older. And currently, there are no age checks on sign-up.
So, while restricting phones for younger kids might be a success with parents in Greystones, getting families to sign up on a wider scale could pose a challenge.
