600 smartphone-free voices. Mostly parents and their teenage kids. Proud to have played a small part in this🙏🏼 #Unplug2Connect The Digital Common Good Rebecca Foljambe safescreenscampaign DelaySmartphones Nihal Arthanayake Planet Earth Publicity Mothers Against Media Addiction Kirstie Allsopp UnpluggedTots

Horrifying report from Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) finds children as young as 11 are being preyed on in sextortion scams, as criminal gangs are targeting younger victims and girls in an “exponential increase in cruelty”

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“Two-thirds of parents want their children to have a basic 'feature' mobile rather than a smartphone amid growing concerns over teenagers' access to disturbing content.” Parents and kids are caught in a peer pressure loop. 🇬🇧 Government must regulate dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1…

Can anyone find stories of families who gave their 11 year old a smartphone and social media, and the child then came out of her shell and flourished? Much more common is the opposite, as here, from Mireille Silcoff: nytimes.com/2024/09/02/opi…

The Anxious Generation is #1 again on the NYT nonfiction hardcover and audiobook lists. That's 23 weeks in a row in the top 4. Parents and teachers are reading it in groups and taking collective action. For guidance on actions to take, see anxiousgeneration.com/take-action

Yet another devastating legacy of forcing children onto screens Sandy Chappell “Social interaction is the foundation for speech & language development & so many parents were working from home during lockdown and resorting to using screens instead of playing or going out.”

Another day, another country taking action to protect its children from social media addiction whilst the UK watches on, inept. This time Australia, poised to ban social media for U16s. telegraph.co.uk/world-news/202…

What do you think: are smartphones in schools helpful or harmful? Share your thoughts why in the comments.

I was on the TODAY, with Hoda and Jenna. The segment opens with a profile of a DC school that went phone free, for no cost (they stored phones in colorful pencil cases, in bins kept by staff for the day). As always, results are amazing: today.com/video/phone-fr…

Social media harms teens in disadvantaged communities MORE than teens in other groups. Zach Rausch and I teamed up with Lennon Torres, of heatinitiative, to lay out the evidence. Below is a powerful statement from Lennon theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

Great to see this project alongside many schools starting to take their own action. "The statistics on children's smartphone use are beyond worrying so the time feels absolutely right for the issue to be addressed." Emma Willis matt willis Channel 4 bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

Bigtech the big tobacco of the 21st century, as this article so clearly explains. Children's well-being is collateral damage in the hunt for eyeballs. Only regulation will stop this. Plus working together through DelaySmartphones

THIS IS WHAT LEADERSHIP LOOKS LIKE! 👍👏👏 Collective leadership from the Ormiston Academies in leading the education sector. More MATs, more schools will follow... More children will experience a school experience that is smartphone free. theguardian.com/education/2024…

Excellent Tom Rees “Learning can’t happen without attention. A lot of this is about a battle for attention, a battle for focus & concentration. It’s not just about having your phone out & using it, it’s the mere presence of the phone.” OrmistonAcads theguardian.com/education/2024…

“Children are easily swayed by anything that can take their attention” Yup. What are you putting in front of your kids? Smartphones should be banned to under 16s. ✊🏾

Yet another story underlining the awful status quo we’ve created in normalising children’s access to violent porn. Rowing back from this is an urgent moral imperative. Limiting smartphones to over 16s would be a significant step in the right direction. thetimes.com/uk/politics/ar…

You will never meet a more determined, resilient, hard- working child than those with a speech & language disorder. A normal day can be exhausting, with every conversation a challenge. They deserve a properly funded #SLT service to support them.

Fab from Max Pemberton: "If I told you I'd developed a product that...was linked to increased anxiety, depression, eating disorders, self-harm and a range of other behavioural and emotional problems, you'd think twice about using it, wouldn't you?" dailymail.co.uk/news/depressio…

Devastating article on the impact of screen based technology on children's eyesight. "Short-sightedness tripled between 1990 and 2023 - rising to 36%" bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…