DfE to look at effects of primary pupils’ use of smartphones

A major new government-funded study will probe the impact of delaying giving smartphones to primary school pupils.

The Department for Education will work with IFF Research on a £2 million randomised control trial to look at the impact of not giving a phone to state primary pupils at any time, including during holidays.

According to Ofcom, 19 per cent of 3 to 5-year-olds own a mobile phone, which rises to 82 per cent of 10 to 12-year-olds.

The study will look at the effect on schools if their use is delayed. For example, it will look at the amount of time teachers have to spend communicating and enforcing mobile phone policies.

It will also look at the impact on classroom behaviour, children’s sense of belonging and how phone use affects relationships between parents and staff.

It will also look at children’s digital and media literacy, behaviour outside school and relationships with parents, siblings and peers.

The DfE said the research aimed to deliver “robust evidence” as there was “still a substantial knowledge gap” in existing studies.

Negative consequences?

Its tender for contract said: “While there is growing evidence of how young people are interacting with digital media, the literature is dominated by a large volume of low-quality studies, the vast majority of which are cross-sectional by design.

“These frequently report associations between screens or social media use and mental harms, but there are often potential confounding factors.”

The study will aim to understand whether delaying the use of smartphones will improve children’s lives “overall”, focusing on their wellbeing, development and health.

It will also look at the potential negative consequences of not using a smartphone, such as loss of supportive networks or ability to widen interests.

Researchers will also seek to understand whether activities potentially displaced by smartphone use – such as reading, sports, hobbies, homework and sleep – will become more frequent.

The DfE said findings could help to understand what a national campaign encouraging delay could look like, including how it could be “most effectively designed and implemented” and which age groups should be targeted.

More than 180,000 parents have already agreed to delay giving their children a phone as part of Smartphone Free Childhood’s “parent pact”.

Parents who sign up pledge not to give phones to their children until they are 14 and to restrict their use of social media until they are 16.

Improvement in mental health

A recent Royal Holloway, University of London study found that schools with at least one fifth of families signed up to the pact recorded an 8 per cent fall in recorded social, emotional and mental health needs.

Daisy Greenwell, co-founder of Smartphone Free Childhood said: “Whatever the DfE research finds, this growing body of evidence gives us real confidence. Delaying smartphones is one of the most powerful things we can do to protect our children and give them the best start in life – and we’re proud that nearly 200,000 families are already proving it.”

Charlotte Ashton, a co-founder of the campaign group Generation Focus and former Smartphone Free Childhood member, said the study could be “game-changing”.

“But while we wait for this study’s findings, millions more children will lose precious years of their childhood to the attention economy.”

Chief executive of ParentKind Frank Young said: “Parents have really pushed for changes to legislation to ban social media access for children. New evidence is always welcome but it shouldn’t shut parents out, they see this issue with their own eyes every single day, they need to be part of the evidence and their voice should be heard in any government sponsored research.”

Sixty-one per cent of parents at Our Lady of Lourdes RC Primary School in Redbridge, Essex, have signed the Parent Pact.

Writing for Schools Week last month, headteacher Ruth Boon said: “Within a year social media issues between children have reduced to zero, giving them space to learn and to build friendships…out children have since learned to play and talk to each other again.”

The DfE said it wanted the study to start “as soon as possible” and that the trial would last for “ideally more than a year”.