About Wimbledon Smartphone Free

This website / initiative has been started by an independent group of Wimbledon parents in London, UK.

We are a non-profit grassroots movement concerned about the negative effect smartphones can have on children.

Inspired by the well-established US initiative Wait until 8th and the explosion of Smartphonefree childhood movement in UK and various success that local groups had, we have shamelessly adopted their approach of encouraging parents to unite and sign a pledge to postpone giving their children a smartphone until they reach age 14.

Our small addition is that we think that schools also need to make a stand and recommend a delay of smartphones to parents. It does impact wellbeing and education quality and it is a problem of the commons, hence we need a united approach.

We wanted to make the coordination and lobbying of schools easier with the pledge. We went with age 14 as this worked to unite all schools in St Albans. To make it easier for whole regions to unite , we have created the form. You pledge, we pass on the number of parents pledged to school head, school then takes a stand and officially recommends to all parents not to give smartphones or own social media accounts to their students. If all schools follow through in Wimbledon normal childhood will be restored.

There are alternatives to smartphones now. The data and research coming in for not giving them one is undeniable. More information in Useful Resources here.

What happens: You sign the pledge, indicating your school. We are going to count pledges at the end of August / early Sep 2024 . If there are at least 20 signatures from your school - we pass it on to the school director. If there is demand from parents to unite across year groups on whatsapp - we do it, if not - we don't.

What do we want the schools to do?

Come out with a strong recommendation to parents not to give children a smartphone or social media account untll at least 14-16 years old. Adopt an acceptable use of screens policy similar to this school so homework doesn't depend on having a smartphone.

Why Wimbledon? Why not just your kids school? We think kids should be free to socialise normally outside their school. A regional approach seems more suitable to maintain a broad and healthy community.