Childhood Wasn’t Meant To Be Scrolled
The Research Is Clear: 40% of kids ages 8–12 are already on social media. That means third graders are posting, scrolling, and comparing — before they’ve even hit puberty. Social media and smartphones are fueling a youth mental health crisis.
Endless comparison. Vanishing attention spans. Fewer face-to-face friendships. The result? A dramatic rise in anxiety, depression, poor body image, and isolation — all before high school.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
We’re here to help families press pause — and reclaim childhood.
What we can do about it
Drive Change: Let’s advocate for tighter handheld device policies at our schools. These should be banned during school hours and school-sponsored activities. Period.
Be Pragmatic: Let’s wait as long as possible on any type of phone. But if we must, let’s not lay the foundation for bad habits. Let’s instead give our kids featureless phones that offer zero social media access.
Watch This:
Now is the time for parents to act
Waiting for government to intervene or tech companies to change their ways may take years.
Let’s be the parents our kids need us to be.
Join the mission.
Stay up to date on our progress and how we can bring meaningful change to your school and parent community.
The Mission
SmarterPhone is dedicated to prioritizing our kids’ mental wellbeing. Our goal is to limit smartphone use among children and teens through high school to mitigate the proven harms of social media.
We work with schools and parent communities to shore up a common line of defense and to reframe the current narrative around this technology away from the inevitable and toward practical, sustainable alternatives.