New report: Dispatches from the New Frontier of Parenting
[.style-intro] “Childhood has got worse”: 2,422 parents in the Smartphone Free Childhood movement reveal the devastating toll social media is taking on children and family life. [.style-intro]
Less than two years ago, Smartphone Free Childhood began as a WhatsApp group between a handful of concerned parents. Today, it has grown into a movement of more than half a million families worldwide.
This report captures why.
In May 2026, we invited parents in the movement to tell us what it really feels like to raise children in the age of smartphones and social media. 2,422 families responded.
What they described was remarkably consistent: addiction, aggression, social exclusion, conflict at home, exposure to harmful content, and a deep sense that childhood has changed dramatically in the space of a generation.
The headline findings
- 84% of parents say childhood today is worse than their own
- 94% say social media has made parenting harder
- 94% identify social media as the biggest threat to children’s wellbeing
- 68% experience social media-related household tension at least weekly
- 88% of parents with children aged 11+ felt pressured to allow access earlier than they wanted
- 93% say platforms should have to prove they are safe before children use them
- 91% support raising the minimum age for social media to 16
The report also reveals the raw testimony behind these numbers, from parents describing regret, family conflict, online exploitation, and the impossible pressure of trying to protect children in a culture where “everyone else already has one”.
It also captures something hopeful: families across the country coming together to say this is not inevitable, and that children deserve better.
[.style-link]Download Dispatches from the New Frontier of Parenting report[.style-link]
