Saving Childhood: A New Movement Helps Parents Protect Young Kids From Smartphones

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Childhood is a time of play—free of work and financial obligations. It’s a time to enjoy the freedoms that disappear with the responsibilities of age.

The years of play are fundamental to each person’s ability to grow into healthy, capable, functional adults.

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Screen time exposes children to a small but stimulating world that undermines their ability to face the real world, warn experts. Social play and real-world adventures, meanwhile, are hallmarks of a healthy childhood and nourish a child's mental and physical development. Jelena Stanojkovic, grandbrothers/Shutterstock

Parents can see the signs of excessive cell phone use in their children if they know what to look for, Dr. Anthony Anzalone, a clinical psychologist at Stony Brook Medicine in New York, told The Epoch Times. These include the child being preoccupied with the internet, spending significant time online, and being less attentive to real-world tasks.

“Some children will use it as a way of escaping from problems or relieving negative moods,” he said.

Parents may also notice their children get upset when they have to put down their phones to do homework or spend time with their families.

More than 75,000 people have taken a pledge to not give their children a cell phone before grade eight. Advocates for the pledge say that waiting to provide children with smartphones can relieve social pressures and protect them from the distractions and dangers of uncontrolled internet access.

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The Impact of Early Smartphone Use

Early smartphone use can undermine childhood development, experts say, by depriving them of the chance to gain many cognitive and social skills essential for their growth. Smartphones foster social comparison, expose children to online violence and sexual content, shorten attention spans, maximize distractions, and increase instances of cyberbullying—issues that could be largely resolved by not putting the internet at their fingertips.

Exposing children to mobile phones and social media early in life can be a risk factor for different key stages of child development, Dr. Catherine Nobile, a New York-based psychologist and director of Nobile Psychology, told The Epoch Times. Early childhood (0 to 5 years) is a particularly important time.

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“Excessive screen time during this time can hinder language and social skills development in children,” she said.

The years that follow are also critical.

“Children undergo major cognitive, emotional, and social development in middle childhood (6 to 12 years),” explained Nobile.

The Wait Until 8th movement highlights these risks, advocating outdoor play, reading, and family activities rather than hours spent on social media and gaming.

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Community Support and Engagement

The pledge encourages parents to gather support within their schools and advocate for joint commitments within grades or districts. To activate their pledge, a group of at least ten families must sign on from a single school. Once activated, families gain access to a list of those who have taken the pledge and can collaborate on strategies to navigate a smartphone-free childhood.

Dr. Vera Feuer is a New York-based Northwell Health physician specializing in psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry. She told The Epoch Times that increased time spent in front of screens for very young children decreases literacy skills, especially early reading skills. There are also other ways it affects development.

“One way is the direct impact of the content, [another is] the amount of time spent,” she said. “But then also there’s this concept that we call ‘crowding out.’”

According to Feuer, this is especially important when it comes to development and developmental stages because when kids do not have the opportunity to engage areas of their brain, the technology can crowd out “opportunities for physical movement, human touch, back and forth interaction, [and] face-to-face interaction,” she said.

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Isolated in ‘Cell Phone Silos’

Noah Kass, a licensed psychotherapist in Brooklyn, New York, told The Epoch Times that the issue is not that families spend less time together than they used to but that they are “alone together,” isolated and disconnected in their private “cellphone silos.”

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Kass pointed out how conversations with partners and children are constantly interrupted by notifications such as texts, calls, emails, and news alerts. “Not all screens are created equal.”

Kass invoked the iconic 1950s image of the American family with TV dinners and watching their shows.

“Sure, they were watching a screen, but they were doing it together—communicating, laughing, and sometimes even sharing an emotional experience,” he said. “Technology, and particularly the use of smartphones, seems to be creating separation between parents and children, often leading to miscommunication because family members aren’t fully present to hear each other.”

Kass explained that with personal connections compromised, families become vulnerable emotionally and physically.

“Cell phone use impacts the quality of conversations between parents and children, making it harder for parents to learn about their children’s lives and harder for children to express their thoughts and emotions honestly,” he said.

“Unrestrained, unregulated, and uncontrolled” cell phone use, especially among young children in late elementary and early middle school years, leads to difficulties in processing sensory input, managing emotions like anger and fear, and elevated cortisol levels, which impair their ability to handle stress, Kass said.

“These children also experience weakened real-life relationships, leading to increased symptoms of depression such as sadness, low energy, and feelings of loneliness,” he added.

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A Shift in Parental Attitudes Toward Technology and Childhood

The Wait Until 8th movement represents a shift in parents’ beliefs about how the internet affects their children. As more families delay smartphone access, the movement’s organizers hope to foster a childhood that emphasizes human connection and active play over isolation and screen time.

Dr. Michelle Dees, a board-certified psychiatrist at Luxury Psychiatry Medical Spa in Chicago, told The Epoch Times that when families aren’t distracted from each other by cell phones, they are bound to have a stronger connection.

“Such a direct approach helps families communicate their feelings and thoughts, thereby forming deeper relationships,” she said. “Over time, such conversations can foster warmth and compassion, which are foundational to any family.”

She added that by delaying cell phone use, families can undertake more collaborative activities like playing board games or endeavors outside the home, which will improve relationships and create lasting memories.

“Such activities promote relationships through teamwork and cooperation,” she continued. “They promote internal family cohesiveness, in addition, quality time fosters an opportunity to share what was learned during individual day-to-day activities.”

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Dees pointed out that children will more easily learn to manage their emotions and stress in environments without cell phones.

“Without the frequent attentional pulls from phones, children can learn how to stay in the present, which in turn improves emotional control and stress,” she said.

She also recommended teaching children mindfulness techniques to help them reduce stress and increase mental clarity for managing problems better. Mindfulness refers to being attentive to our personal experiences, including our thoughts and feelings in that moment.

“In addition, being in the moment may help foster better competence by improving emotional and situational awareness, which promotes growth,” she continued.

Spending time away from devices will also give children the opportunity to engage in imaginative activities such as drawing and storytelling, which are important for emotional regulation, noted Dees.

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“Such activities can enhance their self-esteem by giving them a chance to use imagination and creativity,” she said. “There is also an artistic contribution as creative expression is used as a means of therapy contributing to one’s emotional development.”

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Key Developmental Stages Affected by Early Cell Phone Access

Ernesto Lira de la Rosa, a licensed clinical psychologist and Hope for Depression Research Foundation media advisor, told The Epoch Times that children’s development is divided into several key stages, and early access to cell phones and social media can influence each of these stages in different ways. Major stages that could be affected include:

Early Childhood (0–5 years):

During this phase, children build foundational skills in communication, emotional regulation, and social interaction, said Lira de la Rosa. He added that if children are exposed to excessive screen time, including cell phones, “they may experience delays in language development, difficulties with attention, and reduced engagement in imaginative play, which is critical for early cognitive and emotional growth.”

Middle Childhood (6–12 years):

Lira de la Rosa said middle childhood is characterized by growing independence, cognitive development, and social skills, and children begin to form stronger peer relationships and a sense of self. “Cell phone and social media use at this stage can affect how children build friendships, with potential impacts on their ability to develop healthy, in-person social skills,” he said. If children are exposed to social media, they may be vulnerable to cyberbullying, peer pressure, and inappropriate content, which can challenge their emotional well-being and self-esteem, Lira de la Rosa said.

Adolescence (13–18 years):

Adolescence is a critical period for identity formation, emotional regulation, and the development of executive functioning, said Lira de la Rosa. He explained that access to cell phones and social media can intensify social comparisons and increase exposure to curated or unrealistic portrayals of life, which can negatively affect body image and self-worth. He also noted that “overuse of cell phones can also disrupt sleep patterns, which are essential for the mental and physical development taking place during adolescence.”

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Set Cell Phone Use Guidelines for Children

Feuer emphasized the importance of ensuring that household rules and agreements regarding cell phone use are in place and that those guidelines apply to the whole family, including parents.

“We have to have guidelines, we have to have rules,” said Feuer. “It’s much better to start it early on and gradually have kids gain more autonomy as they learn to navigate and learn to use technology in a way that’s helpful to them.”

She recommended that parents help their children to understand and be more conscious about their cell phone use. Feuer suggested asking children questions such as: “How do you feel afterward? How do you waste your time? How much time are you spending on this that you wish you had time for other things in your day?”

Feuer recounted her experience with her child regarding the amount of time he spent on his phone. She asked him to simply look at the amount of time he spent on TikTok, “and two days later, he deleted TikTok from his phone,” she said.

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Feuer addressed the importance of being a role model for our children when it comes to time spent on devices.

“I know this is more stress on parents, but really, modeling is so important because we do it too,” she said. “We’re addicted to our devices, we’re distracted, and we’re not connecting with our kids because we ourselves are involved with being on one device or another or getting work done or doing our own thing.”

The best approach to teaching responsible cell phone use is to formulate a “family plan,” Feuer said.

“Everybody has to be in it,” she said. “And I think adolescents especially might respond better when the onus is not just on them and we’re not just having their habits under the microscope.”

Feuer recommended approaching the issue as one where parents and children come together as a family, “we need to do better than this. We need to make more time to have family time.”

Another problem that arises with cell phone use from a young age is that the device becomes a way to escape the world when they’re stressed.

“Kids need to learn how to calm themselves without devices,” Feuer said.

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Weaning From the Internet

It’s important to limit cell phone access gradually, Jenny Seham, a clinical psychologist at Montefiore Medical Center, told The Epoch Times.

“Frame it in terms of the ‘freedom’ to enjoy the world around them in the moment. They can invite others into cell phone freedom by planning phone-free activities together,” she said.

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