There is now substantial evidence that excessive screen time and social media use are contributing to mental health issues in children. This can affect children in multiple ways, leading to problems with sleep, eyesight, speech and language development, emotional and social growth, eating habits, body image, educational achievement, and cognitive performance. Research is also indicating that one in four children and young people are using their smartphones in a manner consistent with behavioural addiction.
As healthcare professionals, we witness these harmful effects daily, and the following organisations provide resources we can use to learn more and educate others
READ OUR SUBSTACK POST FROM GP DR HELEN THOMAS
Health Professionals for Safer Screens
HCPs campaigning for safer smartphone use in children, by providing education and support:
Why is everyone talking about smartphones?
Smartphone free Childhood
Formed in 2024 to raise awareness and educate on the dangers of smartphone use in childhood
Smartphone free Childhood Resources
Papaya
Workshops and talks to educate parents and students on the link between smartphones and wellbeing
Read the Blog by Dr Thomas here:
Dr Helen Thomas is an NHS GP and delivers training regarding smartphone and social media misuse. Working with Health Processionals for Safer Screens, Dr Thomas has developed a training module and resource pack to facilitate further support for all.
“If you don’t let your kids have a smartphone then you will never understand them and they will hate you” was the statement that set me off on the path to better understand the current “screendemic”. My girls were 4 and 6 at the time, 2 years ago and whilst that seems young to own a smartphone 25% of pre-schoolers now do own their own device, along with the over 90% of secondary school children.
Following this interaction I felt increasingly isolated and anxious as a parent – was I the only one worried about this? There definitely wasn’t anyone else making noises. Thankfully in a matter of months after that encounter Smartphone Free Childhood (SFC) burst onto the scene and I joined up and threw myself enthusiastically into school groups, then city, then county wide supporting roles. At the same time though, I found myself wondering about the mental health, isolation and self harm issues that were spoken of.
Children who have problematic screen use are three times as likely to have depression and twice as likely to have anxiety, they can have repetitive strain and neck injuries with over 1 hour use a day and their sleep can be negatively impacted. Stats from the Children’s Commissioner, Rachel de Souza scared me with 75% of UK school children having been sent a beheading video, and, from Ofsted, that 90% of girls are asked to share sexually explicit photos “a lot”. Add on some unintentional viewing of hardcore pornography (over 90% of UK 12yr olds), and strangling trends on Tik Tok and I wasn’t sleeping well.
I, ironically, searched the internet to try and find the healthcare voice. “Dirty” google scholar searches found academic papers about the risks of problematic screen use and “digital health harm” but no one seemed to be actually doing anything about it clinically. Thankfully, I came across Health Professionals for Safer Screens (HPFSS). They, like Delay Smartphones, have been quietly working in the background for many years already but hadn’t made it to the headlines, unlike SFC.
I had a meeting with the founders Rebecca Foljambe, a GP in Yorkshire, and Arabella Skinner, a Surrey based psychologist. The HPFSS team had produced some excellent resources and evidence based policy documents, but as yet hadn’t been able to spread this public health message more broadly. “Fear not” thought my anxious and overly enthusiastic mind, “I can help with that” I offered out loud.
Fast forward almost a year exactly from that meeting and 6 months ago we launched, possibly the only clinician training module on digital health and cyber-safeguarding. Across Hampshire, where I am based, GPs, safeguarding teams, teachers and paediatricians have been at the receiving end of this training module. GP systems such as EMIS, now have Ardens template add-ons to check about screen use and direct to HPFSS resources and some paediatric teams have started working on making waiting rooms screen free and adding health links to their clinic letters.
Wessex Healthier Together, a huge parent based resource site created by paediatricians, hosts resources from HPFSS for parents to use and posters have been presented about digital harm at PIER, a paediatric conference, and at the RCGP annual conference. We have spread across to Dorset, where digital harm was presented to an audience of policy makers, teachers and the Dorset police commissioner and where the annual Dorset Children’s safeguarding partnership conference will focus on online risks and digital health harms.
More widely, amazing public campaigns, including one led by the heroic Esther Ghey, mother of Brianna, to end smartphones in schools have commenced. Schools up and down the country are declaring themselves smartphone free thanks to the ongoing efforts of SFC.
So, what can we do still? As doctors, asking a young person about their screen use, and the impact of it on their wellbeing should be as normal as asking about home life, smoking and school worries. As hard as it can be asking about self harm and suicide, smartphones need to openly discussed. We need to educate ourselves about the risks of cyberbullying, sextortion and county lines and the roles that smartphones and social media play in making this so prolific. We also need to then know how to screen the risk to our young people and then know how to support them – all of this is freely available at HPFSS professional resources pages. As parents, we need to consider smartphones a dangerous device that delivers a harmful substance. We hope that our children aren’t smoking behind bike sheds (or more likely vaping in plain site), or drinking alcohol, as we know these are harmful to their health. Our kids wear seat belts and are up to date with vaccines – all things that protect them. We must do the same with smartphones. Restrict access until they are old enough to safely navigate them with support and learning (at least 16yrs).
As doctors, and even more so as women – as mothers, sisters, aunts or daughters, we hold a privileged position. We are family decision makers, we are social group influencers. We hold more power that we sometimes recognise. If we can make these changes, others will follow and new social norms that protect our children will emerge. We have the power to protect and prevent harm both as doctors and family members.
I recently lost a good friend, an amazing mother, to a rare and aggressive cancer. This hit especially hard because as a doctor, I normally can heal or help. I use screening tests and educate on prevention. For my friend, and her family sadly nothing would have changed this devastating outcome but this has made me even more determined to deliver preventive care and early intervention. Sharing this may feel a leap too far, comparing cancer to smartphones, but any preventable death, especially deaths in our young people from exploitation, suicide and dangerous online trends should be something that we prioritise immediately.
