SFC meets the Prime Minister – and he really is listening
[.style-intro] This week, Smartphone Free Childhood met with Keir Starmer and Tech Secretary Liz Kendall at 10 Downing Street to discuss children, smartphones and social media – a remarkable moment for a grassroots movement that began just two years ago. [.style-intro]
Just two years ago, Smartphone Free Childhood began with a handful of concerned families chatting on WhatsApp. So to find ourselves sitting in Downing Street explaining why hundreds of thousands of British families are calling on the government to raise the minimum age on social media felt surreal.
It was a pinch-me moment for all of us.
Not because politics is the goal for SFC. But because for years, many parents have felt like they were watching something enormous happen to childhood in real time – and being told they were overreacting, old-fashioned or somehow imagining it.
For so long, these concerns were dismissed as niche, alarmist or impossible to solve. Now, they are being heard at the very top of government.
That matters.
And it matters even more because we weren’t there because of corporate lobbying budgets, slick political machinery or powerful vested interests pulling strings behind the scenes.
We were there because parents across the country started having conversations in playgrounds, school halls, WhatsApp groups and around kitchen tables – and refused to stay quiet while childhood was reshaped by tech companies.
This moment was built slowly and collectively by thousands of ordinary people doing the unglamorous hard yards of grassroots movement building: organising school talks, setting up local groups, speaking to other parents at the gates, changing school policies, sharing stories, starting conversations and keeping going even when it felt uncomfortable or impossible.
That’s how this issue reached Downing Street.
And this moment belongs to every parent, school and young person who helped make that happen.
What happened at the meeting?
The meeting was hosted by the Prime Minister and Liz Kendall as the Government enters the final stage of its consultation on children and social media.
The aim was to hear directly from parents, campaigners and children themselves before deciding what action to take.
SFC parents and their children spoke powerfully about what smartphones and social media are doing to childhood – from distraction and anxiety to social pressure and the loss of independence, play and presence.
The SFC team spoke directly to the Prime Minister about the extraordinary growth of the movement, and the huge public appetite for raising the age of social media to 16.
While we obviously don’t know what decisions the Government will ultimately take, we left feeling genuinely encouraged.
It felt like ministers understood both the scale of public concern and the growing urgency around protecting childhood in the smartphone age.
After years of this issue being dismissed as niche, alarmist or impossible to solve, that feels significant.
And for the first time in a long time, real change feels close.
