What the Tech: Greystones: What the kids say
Taking a phone away after a child has been using it can spark arguments and tears. Parents in Greystones decided to avoid that struggle by never introducing a phone in the first place. They agreed, as a community, to hold off.
Sienna Murphy, 11, is proof it works. She loves music, Irish dancing, football, and reading. But her father, Gavin, remembers the frustration when she was younger and allowed screen time. “Every time she had screen time, she changed. Her attitude changed and she became more irritable. And if she had it for too long and you took it away from her? There was a point, when she was very young, maybe two years old, she wouldn’t eat unless the screen was on with Peppa Pig,” he says.
It isn’t only about too much time online. It is also about what a child might stumble across. Josh Barrington, a chaplain at Temple Carrig Secondary School, has seen the damage firsthand. “We had a trend at one stage where we had a number of girls and guys self-harming, and we traced it back—they’d all watched videos of people self-harming,” he says. Algorithms, he warns, can push disturbing content even when a student never goes looking for it. “They know exactly how you’re feeling and what you’re not feeling. So if you’re feeling anxious or feeling your image isn’t good enough, it targets that and it feeds that.”
Older students are quick to warn younger ones. Poppy Smullem says, “There’s just so much online that can be unrealistic. Body image, especially social media, can really affect younger girls’ mental health when they see unrealistic images.”
Teacher Susan Keyne Andrews recalls one moment that shook her. A 12-year-old boy searched TikTok for Liverpool football clips and instead saw a live murder on his feed. “This is a 12-year-old boy, and my heart broke for him,” she says.
The pact has support even among the children. Eleven-year-old Rachel Capatina says, “If kids get a phone at a young age, they will start watching too much of it and they’ll know maybe more than they should. While you’re 12, 11, or 13, you should go and do something fun that you won’t be able to do when you’re older.”
Principal Rachel Harper, who spearheaded the initiative, said it was critical to get the kids to understand the reasoning behind the pact.
“It’s not about taking away, it’s what you can gain when you don’t have a smartphone in your hand. All the things you can do, you know? Playing in the playground, play sports, going to the beach, meeting face to face,” she said. “Childhood is getting shorter and shorter, and this is one way we feel we can prolong it a little bit longer for the children.”
On any given day in Greystones, you might see boys jumping into the Irish Sea or a girl like Sienna playing a tin whistle by the shore, far away from screens. Sienna says she doesn’t miss the phone. “I can get addicted to things easily, but I think it’s much better when I have books. I wouldn’t have time to do the things I love, like Irish dancing, music, or football.”
As one parent put it, the goal isn’t to limit a child’s access to the internet, it’s to limit the internet’s access to the child. After nearly three years of “It Takes a Village,” Greystones families believe the extra years of childhood are worth every moment without a smartphone.
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