Clare Fernyhough
Parent Advocates · Smartphone Free Childhood
Co-founded Smartphone Free Childhood alongside Daisy Greenwell, now active in chapters across 27+ countries.
Clare Fernyhough co-founded Smartphone Free Childhood in 2024 together with Daisy Greenwell, starting a UK parent campaign to delay giving children smartphones. Within its first two months the movement attracted around 75,000 parents, and it has since expanded into chapters in more than 27 countries. Fernyhough and Greenwell built the campaign around parents organizing locally, school by school and community by community, to make delaying a smartphone feel like a shared, supported choice rather than an isolated one. Smartphone Free Childhood is now among the largest and fastest-growing parent-led movements addressing children's smartphone access worldwide.
WORKS IN THE LIBRARY (10)
VIDEOS
Smartphone Free Childhood Founders Daisy Greenwell and Joe Ryrie on the power of a parent collective and the pressures of social media on children
In this Netmums Podcast episode, hosts Wendy Golledge and Alison Perry interview Daisy Greenwell and her husband and Smartphone Free Childhood co-founder Joe Ryrie about the campaign, which the episode describes as having grown past 200,000 members after starting as a February 2024 WhatsApp message. Greenwell discusses the risks she associates with unrestricted smartphone access for children, including exposure to harmful content and patterns of compulsive social media use, while stressing the need to balance those concerns against technology's genuine benefits. The conversation covers how parents can coordinate through school and community groups, what responsibilities the founders believe technology companies should bear, and age-based guidelines the campaign recommends, along with lower-risk device alternatives for younger children who need basic connectivity without full internet or social access.
How a British couple sparked a global movement for a smartphone-free childhood
This CBS News article and accompanying video segment reports on Daisy Greenwell and her husband and Smartphone Free Childhood co-founder Joe Ryrie for a U.S. audience, describing how their daughter's request for a smartphone at age eight led to an Instagram post that Greenwell says drew an overwhelming response and grew into a campaign now linked to activity in 39 countries. It quotes Ryrie describing the effort as "not an anti-tech movement, it's a pro-childhood movement," and Greenwell arguing that "delaying the smartphone is free, it's simple, and gives your child the best chance to thrive." The segment situates the UK-founded campaign alongside Australia's under-16 social media restrictions and notes rising U.S. sales of basic "brick phones" as a related parental response. It does not name Clare Fernyhough directly.
STUDIES
'Our kitchen has become the hub of an exploding movement of parents'
In this first-person piece for Positive News, where she worked as features editor, Daisy Greenwell describes how a private WhatsApp group she started with friend Clare Fernyhough — created to support each other in delaying smartphones for their children — grew almost overnight into a nationwide parent network. Greenwell writes that the original group reached WhatsApp's 1,023-member limit within days of an Instagram post, prompting a wave of spin-off groups organized by county and by school. She frames smartphone access among children as an area parents are increasingly anxious about, citing research she says links earlier smartphone adoption with higher reported rates of mental illness among young people, and describes the campaign's aim as giving parents school-based tools to coordinate delaying phones together rather than alone.
Two mums start viral Smartphone Free Childhood campaign: 'Parents are in an impossible situation'
This HELLO! Magazine feature profiles Daisy Greenwell and Clare Fernyhough shortly after they launched Smartphone Free Childhood, reporting that the campaign had already drawn more than 17,000 Instagram followers and roughly 50 UK WhatsApp groups within three weeks. The piece describes both founders as mothers of primary-school-age daughters who wanted support delaying smartphones until age 14 and social media until 16, and quotes Greenwell characterizing the pressure on parents as leaving them in "an impossible situation" between giving a child a phone or risking social isolation. It reports the campaign had already drawn celebrity supporters and some backing from MPs and policy specialists, and notes the founders point to associations between smartphone access and young people's anxiety, depression, and exposure to harmful content as reasons for their recommended delay, without describing this as a single, proven cause.
Inside the fight for smartphone-free childhoods
This New Statesman feature by Pippa Bailey examines the rapid rise of Smartphone Free Childhood, co-founded by journalist Daisy Greenwell and psychologist Clare Fernyhough after the pair shared worries about introducing smartphones to their own children. It reports that their private WhatsApp support group hit its 1,024-member cap overnight, and that the campaign had grown to more than 70 community groups, with people in Italy, the US, Australia, and New Zealand expressing interest in starting their own chapters. The piece describes the founders' view that smartphones are designed in ways that make them hard to put down, and that children's still-developing capacity for self-control makes resisting that design especially difficult. It reports their call for shared responsibility between parents, government regulation, and technology companies, rather than placing the burden on families alone.
Calls for 'smartphone free' childhood grow in UK
This AFP wire report, republished by Gulf News, covers the early growth of the Smartphone Free Childhood campaign co-founded by Daisy Greenwell and Clare Fernyhough (named in the piece as Clare Reynolds). It describes Greenwell noticing that roughly a third of her son's classmates already owned smartphones, which she says prompted her original Instagram post. The report states the campaign had grown into working groups involving educators, policy specialists, and government officials focused on strategies to delay children's smartphone use, aligned with psychologist Jonathan Haidt's recommendation against smartphones before age 14. It quotes Greenwell saying she does not want to give her child "something that I know will damage her mental health and make her addicted" — presented here as her own characterization of her personal decision, not as an established causal finding.
The Revolution Has Begun in the UK
Published on Jonathan Haidt's After Babel newsletter with an introduction from Haidt, this first-person essay by Daisy Greenwell recounts how the WhatsApp group she started with Clare Fernyhough grew into Smartphone Free Childhood, reaching roughly 75,000 parents within its first two months. Greenwell describes the movement's structure of county- and school-level parent groups and its Parent Pact model for coordinating delayed smartphone access, and states the campaign's position that children should not have smartphones before 16 and that any under-16 phones should exclude algorithm-driven apps and open web browsers. She frames the campaign as responding to concern about children's device use and social media exposure, and calls for UK government regulation rather than relying solely on individual parents to hold the line.
How a parents' WhatsApp group sparked a revolt for a phone-free childhood
This SBS News (Dateline) article revisits the founding of Smartphone Free Childhood roughly a year on, describing how Daisy Greenwell's conversation with school friend Clare Fernyhough about their daughters' interest in smartphones led to a WhatsApp group that grew, per the piece, to around 150,000 parents pledging to delay smartphones until age 14. It reports the campaign had by then spread into groups across 27 countries, including Australia, Nigeria, and Costa Rica, and states that Greenwell was by that point advising British MPs considering smartphone-related legislation. The piece links her advocacy to Australia's under-16 social media restrictions, quoting her describing that law as "a symbolic step to show the status quo can change," and frames the campaign's concerns around online safety, lost offline time, and mental health as associations rather than a single proven cause.
Childhood is too short to be spent on a smartphone
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.
Smartphone Free Childhood: the unstoppable rise of a culture-shifting campaign
This Positive News feature by Martin Wright traces Smartphone Free Childhood's growth roughly eighteen months after Daisy Greenwell and Clare Fernyhough founded it, reporting that around 140,000 families had by then signed the campaign's Parent Pact committing to delay smartphones until 14 and social media until 16. It recounts how a casual playdate conversation about children's phones led Greenwell to post on Instagram, with her husband and co-founder Joe Ryrie recalling that "the Instagram post had gone absolutely wild," after which groups formed across every British county within weeks. The piece credits the campaign with contributing to school policy changes, sustained media coverage, celebrity endorsements, and manufacturer interest in child-friendly devices, while describing the founders' stated goal as encouraging balance around technology rather than banning it altogether.