Credit…Stefhany Y. Lozano

Dear Commons Community,

A growing movement among parents across the country is a “signing pledge” to keep kids phone free. By committing not to give their children smartphones until an agreed-upon age, parents are hoping for strength in numbers when schoolyard pressure starts to build. The impetus for the movement in part is a new book by the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt that argues the rise of smartphones has led to an increase in mental illness. The New York Times has a featured article this morning describing the “signing pledge.”  Here is an excerpt.

Kiley DeMarco recently attended Safety Night at her children’s public elementary school on Long Island. As she walked around different booths learning about how to protect her children from accidentally taking a cannabis gummy, about a local violence-prevention program, about how police officers would respond to an emergency on campus, one station caught her eye: A parent was asking other parents to take a pledge not to give their children smartphones until the end of eighth grade.

Ms. DeMarco has two children, one in kindergarten and one in first grade. But like many parents, she has already read books and research arguing that smartphones, and the social media apps on them, drastically increase anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts in teenagers.

Asking parents in the same school to commit to holding back phones until a certain age made sense to her. “It means there is no gray area,” she said. “There is a clear grade level when they get the phone.”

The idea of acting collectively, in lock step with other parents, made her feel more confident that she could keep her commitment. “It totally takes the pressure off of us as parents,” she said. “Down the road, when my kids start begging for phones, we can say we signed this pledge for our community and we are sticking to it.”

In schools and communities across the country, parents are signing documents pledging not to give their children smartphones until after middle school. The idea, organizers say, is that if parents take action together, their children are less likely to feel isolated because they aren’t the only ones without TikTok in their pockets.

Considering the prevalence of smartphone use among young people, it’s a bold step: Research from Common Sense, a nonprofit organization that provides technology reviews for families, shows that half of children in the United States own cellphones by age 11 — roughly fifth or sixth grade.

According to Zach Rausch, an associate research scientist at New York University who studies child and adolescent mental health, case-by-case decisions not to have a smartphone or social media can be “risky” for individual children, socially speaking.

“They are saying, ‘I might be banished from all my friends and my social network,’ and it’s a pretty big cost to make that choice,” he said. “But if the parents collectively work together to set the boundary, it will reduce a lot of conflict. It won’t be, ‘My friend has this, but I don’t.’”

Many groups of parents are drawing on a playbook created by Wait Until 8th, an organization that helps parents collect no-phone pledges from their children’s classes at school. Fifty-four pledges in 16 states were created in April alone, each of which had at least 10 families signed up, said Brooke Shannon, the initiative’s founder and executive director.

“I think we’re getting a flood of pledges now because the ‘Anxious Generation’ book came out, and it’s getting a lot of traction,” Ms. Shannon said, referring to a new book by the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt that argues the rise of smartphones has led to an increase in mental illness. “There are also hearings with the Senate judicial committee and the rules coming out of Florida.” (In March, Florida enacted a bill banning social media accounts for children under 14.)

Indeed, some parents are organizing these pledges because they believe their local governments or schools are not taking enough action.

Good luck to these parents.  Our children are better off free of their phones.

Tony

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