What the Tech: Greystones 1 kids and phones
Imagine a coastal town where nearly every child walks to school without a phone buzzing in their pocket. No TikTok, Instagram, or late-night scrolling under the covers. That’s reality in Greystones, Ireland, a community of about 20,000 people nestled between the Irish Sea and the Wicklow Mountains. Here, parents made a bold pact: no smartphones for their children until middle school. Three years in, their experiment is making waves far beyond Ireland’s shores.
The idea began at St. Patrick’s Primary School, where principal Rachel Harper noticed something troubling. “I could see that in children coming in the morning—a hesitation and just nerves,” she recalls. Anxiety among very young children wasn’t surprising, but Harper saw it growing among older students too. Concerned, she surveyed parents, teachers, and other principals. The results stunned her: 56 percent of parents reported a noticeable rise in anxiety levels, and every single principal in the area saw the same trend.
The culprit wasn’t hard to spot. “We live in an age where children have technology in their hands,” Harper says. “Particularly smartphones. And with a click of a button, they can reach adult content.” She and other local educators worried that phones were creeping into children’s lives earlier and earlier—some as young as nine or ten. “If we don’t do something now,” Harper warned, “where will we be in five years? Will five- and six-year-olds start to get them?”
So eight schools in Greystones joined forces to launch It Takes a Village, a community-wide pledge asking parents to delay smartphones until their kids were 12 or 13. Because everyone agreed, no single child felt left out. One student summed it up simply: “I have never seen anyone my age with a phone.” The pact removed the peer pressure parents often face and made “no phone yet” the norm rather than the exception.
Three years later, the results are undeniable. Teachers report that students are more engaged in class. Parents say their kids spend more time outdoors and talk to each other instead of scrolling. While formal studies are still catching up, Greystones has become a model for communities worldwide considering similar agreements. Educators, mental health experts, and parents from other countries have reached out to learn how the Irish town pulled it off.
Greystones shows what can happen when a community unites around a shared goal for its children. The initiative hasn’t just delayed smartphones—it has sparked meaningful conversations about childhood, technology, and the kind of community parents want to build. And as the world watches, Greystones may prove that sometimes the most radical change begins with a simple promise: wait.
For more U.S. news, click here.
