Smartphone Free Adulthood: Week 1 Review

One week into a little experiment into whether I can function without a smartphone in this day and age, I've found that transferring contacts from Cloud to Card to be a pain...but space to reflect

So I’ve completed my first week. After realising I didn’t actually, after all, need to change my mobile phone number for my Nokia, the transition was relatively smooth.

A couple of bumps here and there - transferring contacts from your Google account to a SIM card is problematic to say the least but really does force you to re-evaluate who you actually need to speak to in your life. I’ve found that I’ve amassed, over the years, some 20,000 contacts - many duplicates for sure and the not infrequent odd ball (“Name>DJ Jelfry, Company> Wham Bar”….?) - many of whom have been consigned to the annals of history, spoken to perhaps once and then forgotten. 

But it hasn’t been as difficult as I thought, at least for me.

Certainly it’s frustrating for some in my family who insist the only means of communication is WhatsApp, but then again they kind of accept that I never really enjoyed the platform or was present on it anyway. And I can still, from my laptop, open it up and begrudgingly respond to those messages that need a response. When I choose to dedicate the time to it.

I’ve had more time, and finished a book, a rather fantastic piece by Dr Anna Machin about the neurochemistry of fathers and how we have evolved over the years to have an influence in our children’s lives, very much akin to the same developmental impact as mothers (more on that later in other posts). And during that time, when not focussed (and I have been more focussed) on work, I’ve managed to journal more, reflecting, I think, on some of the reasons why I took the decision to test out what a smartphone free adulthood would like and feel like, and why, perhaps bizarrely for some, the transition hasn’t been too challenging. And, I suppose like all good stories, it all started with my own childhood…

My Memories of Childhood…

First of all, it’s important to note that these are my memories. I haven’t had them qualified by a discussion with my parents to figure out whether or not they are all factually correct, but the fact that they are vivid to me suggests there is a truth to them. So with that caveat in mind….

I grew up on a typical street in the Barnsbury area of Kings Cross in the 1980s. Back then, it was not what it is today - I still remember a number of the houses being bricked out vacants and ours was one of two or three privately owned houses on the street. But the community we had was enriching, if not materially rich, vibrant and active. My 3 brothers and I had, I think, 10-15 odd children our own age and, again from memory, would typically spend most of our post school hours out on that street, rollerskating, playing football between the cars (which seemed fewer in number, smaller in size and shitter in quality back then), and heading off to our local park (Barnard park) to get up to mischief. My eldest brother learnt to play Spit or Speed - a card game I’m still too slow to play - and I remember watching him play our neighbour Ele, mesmerised by the speed in which they would slap cards down and make mental calculations as to which card should go where (if you don’t know it, check it out).

Again, from memory, my parents were diligent in making sure we were “safe” but not suffocatingly so. They allowed us the room to explore outside by ourselves from a pretty young age. I remember my brother and I would sometimes take the bus to school (I must have been 7 or 8, he 9 or 10) and once we had done whatever after school enrichment activities they’d had planned for us (music practice, homework and more), we would be able to join the gang on the street to play. I remember my mum investing in a whole set of (red and yellow) plastic hockey sticks so that we (the gang and I) could extend our roller gang into a legitimate roller hockey club. It was a time of riotous street parties; of water fights; of car cleaning for pocket money (I remember earning my first £5 only to have an irate neighbour demand it back over a rather low-grade wash); of 40:40 “I save all!”. 

But most of all it was a time of freedom (excluding the time when I had to return, mid-play, for guitar lessons with “Doug”….I didn’t like poor Doug as a result). My parents (and all parents, from memory) both respected our need for privacy and autonomy whilst out on the street - I certainly don’t remember seeing anyone monitoring us. Maybe they did from afar. But we didn’t feel it. We were free to head to the park and play on the street with the unspoken understanding that we were not to venture too far nor cause anyone or anything upset. For most of us, the thought never crossed our minds - I can’t remember anyone doing any kind of damage, or getting into violent scrapes, even though there was violence around us. Barnsbury had the infamous Barnsbury boys and the Cole Pepper estate had their own gang, who often met for scraps in the parks in and around our area but despite it all, we were, from memory, safe or at least felt safe. Critically, for me, we didn’t have an adult breathing down our necks all of the time, supervising us and monitoring us to define and decide what is or what is not healthy and safe. 

Necessary Boredom?

It was also a time of BBC 1 and 2. Of ITV and Channel 4. I remember the excitement when Channel 5 was announced and the rather sad disappointment when the programming yielded very little difference in terms of overall excitement to what the other 4 provided. It was a time of Neighbours vs Home and Away; Eastenders vs Coronation Street and the 9 o’Clock news. The simplicity of the entertainment was matched only by its singular ability to leave you questioning why you’d wasted your time watching it. For my own part, I was neither Eastenders nor Coronation Street, which both fell at times when I was either doing music practice, homework or reading. If I was lucky I would catch the 9 o’clock news but, for the most part, I don’t remember TV being a prominent feature of my life excluding, perhaps, Saturday morning cartoons where I would get up early and binge until the mid morning.

I think part of my point is that the lack of available (or interesting) entertainment at home encouraged us to do two things: be inventive about the entertainment we could muster; and collaborate with other children to entertain ourselves. I don’t remember any of us having computer consoles that featured heavily in our play. We, as a household, had a Super Nintendo with various games - I remember that much - but either it was heavily policed by my parents as to the time I could use it or that we preferred to do other things, but I don’t remember it as vividly as I do those times playing on the street. I think it’s fair to say that for most of us, we had to learn to keep ourselves busy and I don’t think or feel that we suffered for it. On the contrary, I felt that we thrived because of it.

What’s Changed?

The one thing that I’ve noticed, both in my time as an educator, speaking to parents enrolling their children in my schools, and as a parent talking to fellow parents at the park, or at drop off, is the feeling of anxiety towards their child’s safety and well-being growing up in London. Interestingly for me, growing up in the 1980s in London it was a markedly more violent era - some 3 murders per 100,000 in comparison to the 1.3 we have today (gov.uk) so what’s driving this anxiety?

I’ve been fascinated to read the research by Jonathan Haidt in the Anxious Generation - the book itself has become the cause celebre for educationalists across both the US and UK and was one of the primary catalysts to the Smartphone Free Childhood Campaign. It has become a clarion call for parents who, rightly, focus on the section in the book that discusses the impact of smartphones and social media on their children.

But there is another element to his work, which doesn’t receive as much focus or attention, which is the emergence of a parent who appears more anxious, more risk averse and more concerned for their child’s ability to navigate life’s risks. And in his view and conclusion, we’re all collectively setting them up for a fail in doing so.

But is the world a more terrifying place to risk manage for us parents? I’ve always been intrigued by that question - is it as bad, statistically, as we all feel? And I think that the media, and the advent of the 24/7 news cycle has to hold much of the blame (as much as we do for willfully digesting it all, as much as we do, as regularly as we do without pausing to consider what impact it all has).

The Department of Justice in 2015 ran a study to investigate whether the rise of the 24/7 news cycle had any impact on the wider public consciousness and its perceptions of violent crime and discovered (surprise surprise) that there was a correlative relationship between the ubiquity, prevalence and penetration of violent crime reported and the public’s sense of safety. And why gravitate towards big, nasty headlines all the time? Steven Pinker, Harvard University Professor of Psychology, calls it the “Negativity Bias” and it describes our innate, evolutionary tendency towards catastrophising the negative and how difficult it is to “sell” the positive. And on that basis, why would the news try and compete for coverage by selling the upside, when there is so much deliciously destructive news out there?

And it’s just not healthy for us. The American Psychology Association (APA) 2023 study confirmed we’re all presenting media-related burn out and increasing preponderance of anxiety and in an era where over 25% of adults draw their news from social media, rather than traditional or “legacy” news sources (i.e. those that subscribe to some promise of journalistic integrity towards uncovering the truth and only reporting on what they determine to be factually based evidential stories), it’s easy to see how things have got and will increasingly get out of hand.

So I’m not surprised that people and parents are anxious. I feel it too. Everything is just so depressing. London is awash with gangs and knife crime. The Third World War is just around the corner unless, of course, we’re all washed away with the rising Climate-Change inspired tides. And whilst there is always truth in all of these stories, the statistics might not always support the case for such morbid negativity. There might be some positive stories that might speak to human innovation and, indeed hope. If we look for them or can find the space and the openness in our consciousness and our day to search for them.

That doesn’t mean I’m purely seeking the positive stories in life. For those of you who know me, you’re probably aware that I am an idealist by aspiration, but a cynic by experience. The balance of the two, I find, allows me to navigate much. Hatching Dragons - the multilingual / multicultural schools group I set up in London - is / was my way of expressing that idealism by working towards a world I want my children to grow up in: one of cultural respect, understanding and deep interest in learning how other people think / say / do. But I think that there is a solid case for looking to the facts, such that they are, and to avoid the constant bombardment of negative headlines that can so often ignore, or at least be very selective of the facts to ensure that the power of the headline - those knife wielding gang maniacs threatening your children - doesn’t lose its potency

Because these are highly emotional stories. I am not discounting the impact that such stories have on the individuals that suffer them, but want us to perhaps to reclaim a sense of statistical likelihood as to whether or not they can and / or will happen to me or mine. Yes, it might. But so too might crossing the road (1624 fatalities in 2024, in comparison to the 233 who died at the hands of knives in the same period). I just don’t know what the attempt to control everything does for either you or your child. It is just so exhausting.

Ignorance is Bliss?

I don’t want you to think that I’m advocating for parents to abrogate their responsibility to our children wholesale. Indeed, my own work supporting Smartphone Free Childhood should suggest that I am proactive in parents adopting a more proactive role in establishing the guardrails in areas that can harm their children and see no developmental benefit in allowing children to “socialise” in online forums, rather than in the local park (for those who are concerned that children in the park might see them kidnapped, I would urge them to look at the data on sextortion cases (66% increase YoY making it the largest crime persecuted against children in the UK today. The news about Alexander McCartney and the depth and breadth of his child abuse online is only just coming to light).

I think my point is that we all of us, somehow, need to relearn to control what we can legitimately control and find the balance that can allow our children to experience the freedom and risk that, I think, most of us adults experienced in a statistically more violent era. I think it was Socrates who said

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing”,

which I think is all about understanding the limitations of what you can control and what you can realistically do and achieve in the grand scheme of things. And as a parent, part of our challenge is to understand that our role is to prepare our children to confidently engage with the world, which can and will increasingly be a big and scary place. If we let it be that for them. But it can also be one of opportunity, wonder and amazement, if we can help them learn to navigate those risks for themselves, do so confidently and in the knowledge that perhaps, they might (statistically) be ok for the most part.

So one of the other things that I have enjoyed, is reclaiming control of the news that I’m digesting. I listen to the radio in the morning (and increasingly don’t do that) and receive only the journal titles I want to read to my email inbox. I’m not looking at what I don’t want to. Because, in the words of Dostoevsky: “You will have happiness only when you stop striving for it and stop thinking about it.”