Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
No smartphones, plenty of play
HOLY Rosary School for Girls (Johannesburg) has completed a voluntary phone-free 40-day challenge that encouraged Grade 1-7 pupils to abstain from using their smartphones for a month.
Participating primary school students were challenged to keep their phones switched off at all times and refrain from any social media logins.
The uptake was unexpectedly high with 76% (129) of the Grade 4-7 girls pledging their support. With far fewer Grade 1-3 pupils owning a smartphone, the majority pledged to reduce their TV and screen time.
With the 40-day goal now reached, the school reported that 44% of the girls managed to complete the full 40 days, not accessing their device at all. A total of 28% managed to stick to it most of the time with a few cheat days, but 5% could not meet the challenge; 23% who pledged don't own phones but indicated they wanted to support the school and their friends.
The initiative, believed to be the first of its kind in South Africa, was a bold and disruptive first step in a far bigger campaign the school is driving – Smart Age for Smartphone. The campaign is calling for the delay of smartphone ownership in children in a bid to restore a play-based childhood and protect the mental health and well-being of its learners.
The ideal age for smartphone ownership is as late as possible – 14 is being suggested as the earliest children should be given the device, with no social media until 16. Globally, however, the increase in smartphone usage accelerates around the age of 10.
Principal Natalie Meerholz the driving force behind the campaign said the timing could not be more germane, coinciding with newly published legislation that makes social media unlawful for children under 14 in Florida (US). This has been publicly endorsed by local social media legal expert, Emma Sadleir.
“Parents tend to overestimate the dangers of the ‘real world' and underestimate the dangers of a smartphone. Children have more information at their fingertips than ever before. They are more exposed to a world of mystery and wonder, but also to more inappropriate content and physiologically, their brains are not able to cope with what they see,” she said.
Meerholz added that although the female Alpha generation (born after 2010) appeared feisty and confident, they were still little girls.
“What young girls value the most is connection, to belong, to be listened to and be heard and to know they are enough. They need boundaries to feel safe and in control even if they don't think so,” she said.
Concerned about the increase of cyber-bullying and inappropriate behaviour, particularly on WhatsApp, with “spats and fall-outs” among pupils often extending late into the night, Meerholz conducted a survey of pupils in Grade 2-7.
The results mirrored global trends, indicating that 60% of pupils had access to a smartphone, with numbers accelerating in Grade 4, and culminating in 98% of the Grade 7 girls.
She said, “The peer pressure around smartphone ownership is high. It makes parents feel powerless. They often believing their children will be left out and therefore give in to this pressure at a very young age – sometimes as early as Grade 0.
The knock-on effect is childhoods are no longer play-based. Children are starved of play and real connection.
“It's a well-known fact that Steve Jobs limited his own children's access to smartphones and it's been widely reported that Bill Gates didn't allow his kids to have smartphones until they were 14, with a cap of just 45 mins a day on their devices. Both names are synonymous with the technological revolution yet they recognised the dangers of early and excessive exposure. If these pioneers saw the dangers and took steps to limit their children's exposure, we urgently need to do the same.”
Meerholz said that statistics from the South African Depression and Anxiety Group in 2022 showed an alarming 9% of all teenage deaths in SA were through suicides. One in five high school learners had tried to take their own lives – and this figure was climbing.
“While we cannot solely attribute all instances of suicides to social media and smart phones, global research is drawing parallels and highlighting negative associations that demand serious attention,” she said.