Smartphones and kids
I believe that the impact of smartphones on young people’s wellbeing is the defining challenge of this generation.
With funding and support from the Churchill Fellowship, I travelled to California, USA, for a month in Spring 2024 on a mission to understand the impact of smartphones on young people's mental health and discover the best way to support children and young people to have a healthy relationship with the internet. Whilst there I learned about how Silicon Valley execs raise their own children, visited schools and met with a range of experts - young people, parents, educators, youth workers, academics, authors and campaigners.
What I learned was shocking.
To find out more, please …
Follow me @laurawyattsmith on Instagram for practical support for parents around smartphones plus musings on life, wellness, working parents and modern childhood
Read my short summary report of my Churchill Fellowship experience and findings
Sign up to my free newsletter for occasional articles around smartphones, families and wellbeing, and to be notified when my new book, Screensaver: A judgement free guide to your child’s first smartphone is released. This book is being published with Profile Books in January 2026 and will share all I have learned about how to help your kids through ‘the smartphone years’. (For literary queries please contact my agent, @Julia Silk, for all other queries, please get in touch with me).
Listen to my Childhood Heroes podcast. Across twelve episodes recorded during the pandemic, we cover some of the big issues affecting modern childhood and ask experts, ‘is childhood better or worse today than a generation ago?’ It was through making this podcast that I first got interested in the impact of technology on kids’ lives today. Listen on Spotify or search Childhood Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.