"Greystones Pact": this city in Ireland tries to ban the phone to children under 13 years old

This is the dream shared by many parents: to no longer see their children taped to their phones all day. And the city of Greystones, south of Dublin, has taken action. The parents' associations of the eight primary schools of this municipality of 20,000 inhabitants adopted last month, the "Greystones Pact", a pact to ban smartphones to children before they enter secondary school (around 12/13 years).

Parents have voluntarily and unconstrained commitments not to provide their children with phones. "If everyone does it, it doesn't feel like a special case. It's so much easier to say no," Laura Bourne, one of whose children is in a small section, told the Guardian: "The longer we can preserve their innocence, the better."

Soon a "nationwide recommendation"?

Originally, the "Greystones Pact" was born out of children's greater anxiety due to Covid and the use of their mobile phones, according to Rachel Harper, the principal of St. Patrick's School at the forefront of the project. After interviewing parents, the city's eight schools created this initiative.

'Much easier to say no': Irish town unites in smartphone ban for young children https://t.co/CIPcNW6TYv

— The Guardian (@guardian) June 3, 2023

An initiative that goes much further than this small coastal town south of the Irish capital since it has attracted the attention of the government and more particularly the Minister of Health Stephen Donnelly. "Ireland can and must be a global leader in ensuring that children and young people are not targeted or harmed by their interactions with the digital world," the minister wrote in an op-ed for The Irish Times.

"We need to make it easier for parents to limit the content their children are exposed to," he added, indicating that he was considering setting up a "nationwide recommendation" based on the example of Greystones.