A few months ago Mary Lovegrove was at the gates of her son’s primary school talking to other parents about how they felt forced into giving their children smartphones once they moved on to second level.
“Everyone was just resigned to it,” says Lovegrove, whose son (12) starts first year in September. “We were really dreading it, but felt we’d little choice because all their classmates would have one.”
From Glasthule in Dublin, she decided to set up a WhatsApp group last November for parents of other children due to start at her son’s secondary school in the hope a handful of other like-minded parents might join.
Within days 100 parents had signed up. As of this week, a total of 124 parents – about 75 per cent of the class’s parents – have joined the “delay smartphones and/or social media” group.
The second-level school her son is due to attend is one of about a dozen, mostly in the South Dublin area, where similar parent-led WhatsApp groups have emerged in recent weeks. They include St Andrew’s College and Coláiste Íosagáin in Booterstown, Newpark Comprehensive School and Sion Hill College in Blackrock, Loreto Foxrock, Loreto Dalkey and others. There are early signs of others sprouting up among parents of soon-to-be first-year students in Cork, Galway and elsewhere.
Parents are, in a way, conducting a large-scale social experiment: can they hold out in the face of their children’s self-proclaimed wants and needs, the might of social media’s addictive algorithms and what many see as a failure by successive governments to regulate the dangers of the online world.
“Intuitively, we know that giving them a smartphone at that age is just too early,” Lovegrove says. “But I feel like the tide is turning. It’s about strength in numbers. If parents know their child won’t be the only one without a smartphone, it makes it much easier to delay.”
Eoghan Cleary sees the impact of children’s unfettered internet access among his students on a daily basis.
He is an assistant principal, English teacher and coordinator of SPHE (social, personal and health education) at Temple Carrig, a mixed secondary school in Greystones.
In discussions with his students, he says it is clear they are being bombarded with an array of highly inappropriate and damaging content – with serious consequences.
“As soon as the internet realises you’re a teenage boy or girl, you are flooded with stuff which their research shows will keep you scrolling,” he says.
“For guys, it’s all the misogynistic content. All of the narratives that men are being falsely accused of rape; that if you don’t have a father you’re more likely to be a rapist, a criminal and a drug addict – all this comes up in the classroom,” he says.
“And then for girls, they’re just bombarded with fake Ozempic nasal sprays, tanning injections, teeth filing, fake Botox supplements – all the stuff that’s based on their appearance and more so about their sexualisation.”
The proliferation of pornography is everywhere online, he says, and across all social media platforms.
“If you’re a female student, you get direct messages regularly asking for nude selfies. I had a first-year group ... who had a WhatsApp group which was primarily used for porn sharing.”
The impact of all this, he says, is deeply troubling. Cleary has received disclosures of sexual assault from students who were at parties; evidence of students being blackmailed online after sharing sexual images of themselves; reports of self-harm in school bathrooms; worryingly high levels of anxiety and school refusal.
Research shows mental health problems have soared since smartphones became ubiquitous well over a decade ago. There have been numerous warnings, too, of weakened social bonds, increased loneliness, sadness and social anxiety among children.
While some large-scale studies are slow to solidify a causal relationship between social media usage and these problems, Cleary has no such reservations.
“To me, it’s so bloody obvious that it’s smartphones ... but I’m also at pains to state that it isn’t really about smartphones alone; it’s giving the internet access to your child, through any device. It is not so much what your child does online; it’s what the online world does as soon as it realises who your child is ... this wasn’t so much of a problem before algorithms.”
Hilda Hamilton is one of the parents signed up to the “delay smartphones” campaign.
A mother of three from Sandymount in Dublin, she is determined to hold off getting a smartphone for her eldest son (12).
“My gut feeling is there is something fundamentally wrong with giving a smartphone at that age,” she says. “I know how much I use it and I’m 44. It is so addictive – yet we’re expecting them to have the emotional intelligence to handle it.”
She feels parents are being failed by government, regulators and social media companies, but is cheered by the fact that parents are taking action.
Like many in the WhatsApp groups, she is thinking of giving her son an old-style Nokia or Balance phone, designed to block addictive content and apps, instead.
“I’m pro technology and being able to communicate, but want to delay his access to social media ... It would purely be a means of contacting him. You can still have independence with a normal phone.”
Gill Hurley from Dalkey has told her 12-year-old he will not be getting a phone.
“Is he delighted? No, but he understands my view ... they don’t have to like it, but if they understand your reasons, I think they will get more on-board ...
“I’m not naive and I know the pressure will be on when he starts second level ... but I also know that if I gave him a smartphone, I’d be arguing all the time about apps and screen time. So, this really is the lesser of the two evils.”
For some parents involved in the initiative, it is a second chance to take a different path.
Ross Staunton gave his daughter in second year a smartphone when she started second level on the basis that all her class would have one.
Having seen the impact of it, he wants to delay doing the same for his son who starts secondary school in September.
“The crunch time will come in the summer,” he admits. “We’re all talking a good game at the moment and most, I think, are planning to press ahead with it. Even if some do cave in, I’m hopeful there will be enough. It will require bravery from parents. I think if we can hold off until 14 or 15 years of age, you’re doing well.”
Eoghan Cleary regularly gives talks to parents at schools about staying safe online. He has been doing it for about eight years but only recently felt a “tipping point” in the level of interest.
“Back then there might have been 10 or 14 people in the room turning up. Now, the rooms are packed with hundreds of parents. Parents are more aware. They can see what’s going on with their children and don’t know what to do about it.”
One of his key messages, he says, is that parents have power – even if they don’t realise it.
“Otherwise, governments are not going to do anything. Yes, there’s a large corporate tech lobby out there. But as soon as the parents come together and say, ‘you need to protect our children online’, they will have to act.”
