Brooke Shannon
Parent Advocates · Wait Until 8th
Founded the pledge that got 100,000+ families to delay smartphones until eighth grade.
Brooke Shannon founded Wait Until 8th in 2017, a campaign asking parents to pledge to delay giving their children a smartphone until at least eighth grade. The pledge only activates once enough families at a school sign on, turning an individual decision into a collective one so no single kid feels left out. Since launching, the campaign says more than 100,000 families have taken the pledge. Wait Until 8th has become one of the most widely cited grassroots parent-organizing efforts in the movement to delay smartphone access for children, giving parents a concrete, low-cost first step.
WORKS IN THE LIBRARY (11)
VIDEOS
Childhood Smartphone Restrictions — Interview with Brooke Shannon
In this short interview segment from the American Enterprise Institute's VIEWPOINT series, Wait Until 8th founder Brooke Shannon discusses why she believes many families give children smartphones before they are ready and what pushed her to organize a group pledge instead of acting alone. She walks through how the ten-family activation threshold is meant to remove a child's fear of feeling socially left out, and frames delayed smartphone access as one practical, parent-led step families can take together rather than a policy mandate. AEI, a policy research organization, frames the segment as part of a broader look at how families and institutions are responding to smartphone-related pressures on children. TechKids Foundation includes this video as a short, on-record explanation of Shannon's reasoning delivered directly by her, from a mainstream policy venue.
Defusing the Social Pressure of Smartphones: The Power of Wait Until 8th
In this recorded Fairplay webinar, Wait Until 8th founder Brooke Shannon joins pediatrician Dr. Natasha Burgert to discuss the social pressure parents face when deciding whether to give a child a smartphone. Shannon explains how the group pledge is designed to remove that pressure by making the delay a shared, grade-wide decision rather than one family standing alone, while Burgert brings a pediatric-health perspective on why many children reach for a first phone before they are developmentally ready for the responsibilities it carries. The two discuss practical alternatives, such as basic phones, and strategies for talking with children and other parents about the decision. TechKids Foundation includes this recording as a video-format explanation of the pledge's design, paired with outside clinical framing from a pediatrician rather than Shannon's advocacy voice alone.
138: Wait Until 8th Founder Brooke Shannon
On this podcast episode, Brooke Shannon retells the origin of Wait Until 8th to a general audience, going further into her own household's story than in most press interviews — the moment her oldest daughter began asking for a phone as classmates got them in elementary school, and the peer-pressure dynamic that pushed her to organize other parents rather than decide alone. She talks about how hard many children, and adults, can find it to limit their own phone use once they have one, and how the group pledge is meant to make waiting easier by removing the single-family stigma. The conversation stays personal and anecdotal rather than data-driven. TechKids Foundation cites this episode as a first-person, long-form account of Shannon's own family's path to founding the organization.
How to Delay Social and Smartphone Use With Wait Until 8th
On The Screenagers Podcast, host Dr. Delaney Ruston — a physician and the filmmaker behind the Screenagers documentary series — interviews Brooke Shannon about how Wait Until 8th's community-pledge model works in practice, seven years after the organization's founding. The conversation covers why the pledge requires multiple families from the same grade to sign on before it activates, how Shannon talks with parents who feel pressure once a child already has a phone, and practical tools, including device settings and family-conversation approaches, for households trying to scale back access rather than eliminate it outright. The episode is aimed at parents already convinced about delaying smartphones and looking for implementation help, more than at persuading skeptics. TechKids Foundation cites this episode as Shannon's most recent long-form public statement of the pledge's ongoing, practical advice for families.
STUDIES
That Smartphone Can Wait Until 8th
This is a first-person essay by Brooke Shannon, published on Fairplay's site about a month after she launched Wait Until 8th, explaining why she started the pledge. Shannon describes watching smartphones reach children years before she felt they were ready and lays out the pledge's group-commitment structure — a school-grade cohort of at least ten families agreeing together to delay smartphones until eighth grade. She frames early, unsupervised smartphone access as linked to exposure to inappropriate online content, social-media-driven pressure on self-esteem, and difficulty children can have limiting their own use, while noting that several well-known technology executives restrict their own children's device access to similar ages. The piece is both a personal account and a call for other parents to join. TechKids Foundation cites it as an early primary statement of the founder's own reasoning and the pledge's original scale.
Wait Until 8th — A Pledge To Delay Smartphone Usage In Kids
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.
Parent Like A Tech Exec
Co-written by Brooke Shannon and psychologist Richard Freed, this Wait Until 8th blog essay argues that the parenting habits of well-known technology executives are worth copying. The authors compile public examples of tech-industry parents who reportedly delayed their own children's smartphone and social-media access, kept devices away from family meals, or set firm household screen rules, and note that some industry figures have themselves warned about how attention-holding some of their own products are designed to be. From these examples, Shannon and Freed draw three recommendations for ordinary families: delay the smartphone through their own pledge, set clear at-home screen boundaries, and advocate for less classroom device use. TechKids Foundation cites this piece as Shannon's own argument for why parents might look to industry insiders' household choices, not just outside research, when deciding on smartphone timing.
Brooke Shannon on Waiting to Introduce the Smartphone: 5 Questions with Family Studies
In this five-question written interview, the Institute for Family Studies asks Wait Until 8th founder Brooke Shannon to walk through her own thinking on smartphone timing. She describes what first alarmed her — watching middle-schoolers leave school absorbed in their phones — and cites outside data on how many hours some teens spend on screens daily as part of her rationale. Shannon frames the pledge as non-judgmental: delaying smartphones to eighth grade isn't realistic for every family, she says, and she encourages parents to weigh their own circumstances rather than follow one rule. She also discusses classroom phone use, the fear of missing out the pledge is meant to relieve, and building parent coalitions at the school level. TechKids Foundation cites this interview as a fuller statement, in Shannon's own words, of how she balances a firm public pledge with flexibility for individual families.
'Wait Until 8th' Asks Parents to Delay Smartphones for Kids
This TODAY.com feature, written by Allison Slater Tate, profiles Brooke Shannon and the continued growth of the Wait Until 8th pledge five years after its founding. Shannon describes what first drew her to organize parents — seeing young elementary-school children with smartphones — and lists the concerns she raises with other parents, including distraction, disrupted sleep, cyberbullying, and exposure to inappropriate content, presented as risks tied to early, unsupervised access rather than guaranteed outcomes. The piece includes a supportive outside quote from child-development expert Dr. Deborah Gilboa, who says the pledge helps normalize delay, alongside a dissenting parent's view that smartphones can help kids stay socially connected, especially outside a traditional school setting. TechKids Foundation cites this piece as a mainstream, non-advocacy news account of both the pledge's rationale and its critics.
Keeping Kids Safe: 'Wait Until 8th' Pledge Aims to Empower Parents to Resist Smartphones for Children
This Fox News feature centers Brooke Shannon and the Wait Until 8th pledge, following two families who use the group commitment to hold off on smartphones for their children. Shannon, identified as founder and executive director, explains the ten-family activation threshold and recommends basic phones or GPS watches as alternatives for parents who still want a way to reach their kids. The article frames early smartphone and social-media access as associated with cyberbullying risk and other social pressures on children, while also presenting a range of outside expert opinion: one psychologist argues strongly against phones for young adolescents on mental-health grounds, while another expert contends that teaching responsible use matters more than avoidance altogether. TechKids Foundation cites this piece for its side-by-side presentation of Shannon's pledge alongside experts who disagree with each other about the right approach.
Hold the Phone!
Published in the American Family Association's magazine The Stand, this feature by Matthew White profiles Wait Until 8th founder Brooke Shannon alongside a second source, Dr. Kathy Koch of Celebrate Kids. Shannon recounts the same founding moment she describes elsewhere — watching middle-schoolers file out of school absorbed in their phones — and explains how the pledge's group structure eases the social pressure any one family would face acting alone. The piece cites research linking children's smartphone and social-media use to disrupted sleep, broader mental-health concerns, and cyberbullying risk, and Koch separately argues that heavy device use in childhood can get in the way of children developing empathy and eye-contact skills. TechKids Foundation cites this piece as an example of Shannon's advocacy being paired with a faith-based parenting organization's independent commentary on children's development.