Science & technology | Digital detoxes

What is screen time doing to children?

Demands grow to restrict young people’s access to phones and social media

Teenagers looking at their smartphones.
Photograph: Getty Images

Two months ago Daisy Greenwell and Clare Fernyhough set up a WhatsApp group to discuss how to stave off their young children’s demands for smartphones. After they posted about their plans on Instagram, other parents wanted in. Now their group, Smartphone-Free Childhood, has more than 60,000 followers debating how to keep their children away from the demon devices—a debate they are naturally conducting on smartphones of their own.

This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Time for a digital detox?”

From the April 20th 2024 edition

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