I took my kids phones away, and this is the surprising thing that happened

After a month without their phones, I am convinced that my children do not need to be constantly connected to the internet, and neither do I, writes Alex Hyndman-Hill.

After one month without their smartphones, I’m happy to report that I’ve noticed a huge shift in our family. Picture: iStock

When I first floated the idea of switching our smartphones for “dumb phones” my 12-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter were horrified. They relied on their smartphones for everything from finding their way around, listening to music on the bus, watching YouTube and sending messages on Snapchat.

I challenged them to spend a month using the old-style Nokia flip phones like the one I had when I was a teenager. They were furious with me. But after a month without them, I am convinced that my children do not need to be constantly connected to the internet – and neither do I.

After years of allowing my kids to use iPads and smartphones I am happy to admit very publicly that I got it wrong. I am obviously not the only one, there is a growing movement calling for a change to the age children can access social media. The push is to save them from what Queensland’s own health chief has called an epidemic.

The latest statistics are shocking. Queensland government data reveals incidents of self-harm and suicide as well as children seeking help for depression and anxiety have risen exponentially over the past decade. It’s surely no coincidence that the first smartphones arrived in around 2009.

Generic mobile phone Istock

The arrival of social media in my kids’ lives was in 2011 and 2012, the years they were born and made their debuts as babies on my Facebook feed. They have been on the internet their entire lives but have only started creating their own accounts in the past year. That’s where the major problems began.

I feel like a bit of a hypocrite, and my children have wasted no time in pointing this out. I love social media and spend a great deal of time posting and consuming it.

Social media has been a huge part of my work as a journalist and has become intrinsically linked to every job I do across radio, TV, print and podcasts.

So, I spend a lot of time at home in front of my kids on the phone “working”. I guess it’s no wonder that they see no harm in mirroring that behaviour.

When my daughter starting spending three hours on a school day on TikTok and spent more time editing a video than she did doing her homework I started to talk to her about perhaps cutting back on the scrolling. Around the same time my son became obsessive about Fortnite and being online with his friends. I tried everything to persuade them to minimise their use, but every discussion about screen time descended into an argument.

So, I took their phones away every afternoon and started checking them more thoroughly. I found troubling evidence that things were getting out of control. There were messages from people they clearly didn’t know as well as selfies in their bedrooms and screen shots of offensive memes and song lyrics.

Alex Hyndman-Hill

I was worried about the way their moods were changing – to become more sad and withdrawn – and the increasing arguments between us.

After one month without their smartphones, I’m happy to report that I’ve noticed a huge shift in our family.

My daughter is spending next to no time on her phone. There isn’t much for her to do on it after all. She has been listening to music, but days have passed without her even going to collect it from the inchargebox (which is also a great invention).

Car drives are now quite different too. The 10 hours I spend with my two in the car each week are now spent either listening to podcasts with my son or being treated to my daughters’ latest TED Talk on her favourite artist (Billie Eilish) or a rendition of one of her new songs.

We’ve started playing more games together and having movie nights watching oldies like Stand By Me and The Breakfast Club.

My daughter now carries a crossword book around with her and my son draws everything in sight and paints rocks.

The damage done to them by spending their childhoods on devices and their early teen years on social media is hard to gauge.

But at least I am trying to be more mindful about how they spend the next few years before they inevitably jump back on to the socials.

Hopefully during that time, I will be able to help them be better prepared and more of their friends will join them so they’re not the odd ones out.

Alex Hyndman Hill is a journalist and author