30/06/25

What happens when children voluntarily give up their smartphone?

A few months ago, Liz Hunter, the Curriculum Lead for PSHCE and Religion, Philosophy and Ethics at Ecclesfield School in South Yorkshire, emailed to say she'd seen some of our recent work and wondered if we were interested in an initiative they’d begun planning a year earlier.

Along with an academic from Sheffield Hallam University, the school had devised a deprivation study. They’d managed to persuade 32 young people from years 7 to 11 to voluntarily give up their smartphones for 3 weeks to see how it affected their lives.

Given our interest in young people’s use of media and technology, we suggested sending a researcher and filmmaker to the school at the end of the study to talk to those who’d been involved and some of those who hadn’t.

This film tells their story.