News Investigation

Calls for 'smartphone free' childhood grow in UK

Mar 2024 🇬🇧 Agence France-Presse (AFP)

This AFP wire report, republished by Gulf News, covers the early growth of the Smartphone Free Childhood campaign co-founded by Daisy Greenwell and Clare Fernyhough (named in the piece as Clare Reynolds). It describes Greenwell noticing that roughly a third of her son's classmates already owned smartphones, which she says prompted her original Instagram post. The report states the campaign had grown into working groups involving educators, policy specialists, and government officials focused on strategies to delay children's smartphone use, aligned with psychologist Jonathan Haidt's recommendation against smartphones before age 14. It quotes Greenwell saying she does not want to give her child "something that I know will damage her mental health and make her addicted" — presented here as her own characterization of her personal decision, not as an established causal finding.

~1 in 3 classmates already owned a smartphone

Greenwell told AFP that around a third of her son's classmates already had smartphones, which she says prompted her original Instagram post.

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CITATION

Agence France-Presse. "Calls for 'smartphone free' childhood grow in UK." Gulf News, 29 Mar. 2024. https://gulfnews.com/world/europe/calls-for-smartphone-free-childhood-grow-in-uk-1.1711721254217

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