We’ll look back on kids with smartphones the way we now see smoking around them

Remember when you could smoke anywhere? Inside bars, in cars and around children it was normal, and no one questioned it.

Or perhaps the time when seatbelts were optional. When we didn’t think twice about piling kids into the back seat without a second thought, but we look back now and wonder what on earth we were thinking.

I believe we are living through another one of those moments except this time, it’s happening in our hands with smartphones.

What we’ve accepted in just over a decade as “normal” is, in reality, a massive social

experiment on childhood, and the early results are not just concerning, they’re alarming.

In the last ten years alone, we’ve seen a reported, 600 percent increase in disordered eating, 500 percent increase in self-harm a 167 percent increase in the number of girls who have taken their own lives and 97 percent for boys, as well as a doubling of reported loneliness.

At the same time, educational outcomes have slipped, attention spans have shortened, and childhood itself seems to be changing in front of us. And yet, somehow, we hesitate. We wait for more evidence, more reports, more policy and more legislation.

But how much more do we need? Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: we didn’t arrive here through careful decision-making, we sleepwalked into it. Devices crept into bedrooms, classrooms, dinner tables and prams, until suddenly, they were everywhere, and now, they are shaping childhood.

We know that the developing brain is built through connection, eye contact and conversation. The frontal cortex, responsible for emotional regulation, decision-making and social skills, grows through relationships and smartphones interrupt that.

I recently watched a baby sitting on a café table surrounded by adults, every one of them on their phone. No eye contact or interaction, just a child, quietly absorbing a world where attention is constantly elsewhere. That isn’t a small shift, that’s a fundamental rewiring of what it means to grow up.

And while governments here and overseas begin to grapple with regulation, and courts in the United States are already holding tech companies to account, families are left in limbo waiting for action.

But we don’t have to. Instead of relying solely on policy, we can offer something far more immediate: collective action. A Parent Pact, and an agreement between families to delay giving their children smartphones, often until at least 14 or older. Not in isolation, but together.

Because one of the biggest pressures parents face isn’t just the device itself, it’s the fear of their child being the only one without one. A pact removes that fear, creating strength in numbers and giving parents permission to say “not yet” without their child feeling left behind.

Already, more than 1600 New Zealand families have signed on through Smartphone Free Childhood New Zealand with momentum building fast, and the reasoning is straightforward: delaying smartphones is one of the most effective ways to protect children’s mental health, sleep, learning and social development.

This isn’t about rejecting technology, it’s about timing and it’s about recognising that just because something is normal, doesn’t mean it’s harmless.

Remember, we’ve been here before. There was a time when tobacco companies insisted cigarettes were safe and when anyone suggesting otherwise was seen as alarmist. It took years, even decades before the weight of evidence forced change. The difference now is that we don’t have to wait decades, we already have enough signals to act.

And perhaps the better question isn’t whether smartphones are harming childhood, but whether we’re willing to do anything about it. Because one day, we will look back on this era and see photos of toddlers with iPads, children on devices late into the night and families sitting together but not really together.

Only then we will ask ourselves the same question we asked about smoking in cars and seatbelt-free rides: How did we ever think that was okay?

The shift is coming, the only question is how long we take to catch up.