The writer of Adolescence has backed the Smartphone Free Childhood group, which has received the support of more than 100,000 parents pledging to withhold smartphones from their children until they are at least 14.
Jack Thorne, the co-writer of the Netflix drama about “incel” culture, said he supported the campaign’s “parent pact” – an online promise to wait until the end of year 9 before considering giving a child a smartphone.
“I think SFC is a remarkable group and the parent pact is a remarkable idea,” said Thorne, who has an eight-year-old son. “I know it’s one that I’m going to engage in as our kid reaches the critical age of smartphone want. I am terrified of what comes next and think empowering parents is a vital ingredient in this struggle.”
The pact has garnered more than 100,000 signatures since its launch six months ago and its celebrity backers include the singer Paloma Faith, the actor Benedict Cumberbatch and the broadcaster Emma Barnett. According to research by the media regulator Ofcom, 89% of 12-year-olds in the UK own a smartphone, a quarter of three- and four-year-olds do, and half of children under 13 are on social media.
Last week, the Guardian revealed the government was to begin in-depth scrutiny of smartphone bans in schools in England. It is understood that the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, has become frustrated that there is a lack of evidence as to whether the guidance is being followed and its impact on classrooms. However, there are no plans to legislate for a ban.
Adolescence, which is about a teenage boy who is accused of killing a female classmate, has stoked the debate about social media and managing children’s access to smartphones. Last week, the prime minister, Keir Starmer, said he had been watching the drama with his children, while Thorne has called for screenings in parliament and further restrictions on under-18 access to social media.
Smartphone Free Childhood, which started as a WhatsApp group formed by three parents, argues that smartphones damage children’s development by displaying harmful social media content, distracting classrooms and enabling cyberbullying.
However, opponents of a full ban for teenagers include Ian Russell, a prominent internet safety campaigner who has said blocking the sale of smartphones to the under-16s and raising the minimum age for accessing social media risks doing more harm than good. Russell’s daughter, Molly, killed herself in 2017 after viewing large amounts of content related to suicide, depression, self-harm and anxiety on Instagram and Pinterest.
Writing in the Guardian last year, Russell said a ban would be “naive”, because it would at best delay encounters with harmful online content and would not remove the danger – because damaging material was still present on social media platforms.
The recently introduced Online Safety Act contains a series of provisions protecting the under-18s from content that is harmful but not illegal – such as, potentially, content from “toxic” male influencers such as Andrew Tate. The legislation requires platforms to shield children from content that is abusive or incites hatred against people with certain characteristics such as their sex.
Ofcom is also developing codes of practice to protect women and girls from online harm. These measures could include introducing “nudges” to ask whether someone is sure they wish to post a potentially harmful comment – a feature that has been shown to lead to significant behaviour change. Also, under a provision requiring tech firms to enforce their content guidelines, if for instance a social media platform’s rules bar misogynistic material, then that site needs to make sure such content is removed.
