On the principle of strength in numbers, parents in an Irish town have banded together to collectively tell their children they cannot have a smartphone until secondary school - when children are at least 12 or 13 years old.
Parents’ associations across the district’s eight primary schools in the County Wicklow town of Greystones have adopted a no-smartphone code to present a united front against children’s lobbying, amid concern smartphones were fuelling anxiety and exposing children to adult material. It is a rare example of an entire town taking joint action on the issue.
“If everyone does it across the board you don’t feel like you’re the odd one out. It makes it so much easier to say no,” said a mother with a young child. “The longer we can preserve their innocence the better.”
And this isn't just about kids not being allowed to take smartphones to school. The deal is that parents withhold smartphones from children at home too - so, everywhere - until they enter secondary school. The theory is that by applying the rule to all children in the area will curb peer pressure and dampen any resentment. As one child put it: “It’s fair if no one can have it.”
The initiative has drawn interest from parents’ associations in Ireland and abroad and prompted Ireland’s health minister, Stephen Donnelly, who lives near Greystones, to recommend it as a nationwide policy.