News Investigation

Childhood is too short to be spent on a smartphone

May 2025 🇬🇧 Back Market UK (editorial)

Written by journalist Thomas Hobbs for Back Market's UK editorial section, this feature interviews Smartphone Free Childhood co-founder Daisy Greenwell alongside community advocate Amy Ruffell, reporting that around 140,000 UK parents had by then joined the campaign's Parent Pact. Drawing on Ofcom data cited in the piece about rising smartphone ownership among younger children, it quotes Greenwell saying the campaign is not calling to eliminate smartphones outright but that "there's also no doubt they're bad for our children's mental health" — her own framing of the concern rather than an independent finding. Ruffell is quoted describing the core worry as "opportunity loss," where time spent on addictively designed apps displaces offline development. The piece also relays Greenwell's practical advice to parents on managing the adjustment period after delaying a child's first smartphone.

~140,000 UK Parent Pact sign-ups reported

The article states around 140,000 UK parents had joined the campaign's Parent Pact by the time of publication.

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CITATION

Hobbs, Thomas. "Childhood is too short to be spent on a smartphone." Back Market UK, 19 May 2025. https://www.backmarket.co.uk/en-gb/c/tech-education/smartphone-free-childhood-UK-campaign

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