News Investigation

Wait Until 8th — A Pledge To Delay Smartphone Usage In Kids

Mar 2018 🇺🇸 Mother Magazine

This Mother Magazine profile, published about six months after Wait Until 8th launched, follows founder Brooke Shannon's account of why she started the pledge in her Austin, Texas community and how quickly it spread nationally. The piece cites outside research describing children's daily screen time as ranging from two to more than eight hours and characterizes heavy use as associated with academic distraction, disrupted sleep, and higher rates of anxiety and depressive feelings — presented as patterns researchers have observed, not as a single proven cause. Shannon explains the pledge's ten-family threshold, approved alternatives like basic phones and calling watches, and her emphasis on parents modeling their own device habits. TechKids Foundation cites this profile as an early, widely shared account of both Shannon's personal motivation and the pledge's first year of national growth.

10,000+ families, all 50 states, within one year

By its first anniversary, the piece reports the Wait Until 8th pledge had reached more than 10,000 participating families across all 50 states.

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CITATION

Sara Langer, "Wait Until 8th — A Pledge To Delay Smartphone Usage In Kids," Mother Magazine, March 8, 2018. https://www.mothermag.com/wait-until-8th/

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Nov 2021 🇺🇸 Harvard Kennedy School / The Harvard Gazette
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Sep 2021 🇺🇸 NPR (Fresh Air)
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Oct 2019 🇫🇷 France Inter (Radio France)
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In this long-form filmed talk for Aprendemos Juntos 2030 — the Spanish-language education series produced by BBVA and distributed with El País — Michel Desmurget speaks for close to ninety minutes on how screens relate to children's development. The INSERM neuroscience research director argues that heavy recreational screen use is associated with weaker language, shorter attention, and disrupted sleep in children; contends that app and platform design is engineered to keep young users engaged; and dismisses the « digital natives » idea as a myth unsupported by the studies he reviews. He closes with his standing recommendations: little or no screen time in the early years, firm daily limits afterward, and reading as the leisure habit he says is most consistently associated with stronger cognitive and emotional development. TechKids includes it as his major Spanish-language talk, extending his French argument to a global audience.

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Nov 2020 🇦🇷 La Nación
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Sep 2023 🇫🇷 France Inter (Radio France)
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