If you found this page, something probably brought you here. A conversation that did not go well. A phone request you were not ready for. A group chat you wish had never started. Or just the low, constant sense that this is moving faster than you can keep up with. Here is the first thing worth saying: you are not behind, and you are not the only one. The question I hear most from parents is not really about screen time. It is, “What if my child is the only one?” This page holds three different kinds of help.
- Other families asking the same questions, so a decision you make at home does not have to be a decision you make alone.
- Places to get good information that is current, balanced, and written by people who actually spend time with kids.
- Something to watch together, because a film will sometimes open a conversation that a lecture closes.
You do not need all of it. Start with whichever one matches the thing that brought you here.
Parent-Led Movements Worth Knowing About
Parent-led movements can make waiting feel less lonely by helping families create a shared norm instead of making the decision one household at a time.
- Wait Until 8th invites families to pledge that they will wait until at least the end of eighth grade before giving a child a smartphone. The pledge becomes active on the site when ten families from the same grade and school join, allowing those families to support one another. Basic phones and smartwatches used for calling and texting do not prevent a family from participating.
- Smartphone Free Childhood began in the United Kingdom and has expanded internationally. Its Parent Pact encourages families to delay smartphones until at least fourteen and social media until sixteen while connecting with other families trying to do the same.
- Mothers Against Media Addiction, or MAMA, is a grassroots movement of parents, grandparents, extended family members, and other allies working on changes in homes, schools, communities, and laws related to children’s media use.
- Phone-Free Schools Movement provides information and support for families and educators advocating for phone-free school days in which personal devices remain off and stored from the first bell through the last.
These organizations approach the issue from different directions. Some focus on delaying smartphones or social media, some focus on school policies, and others focus on broader advocacy. You do not have to agree with every position to benefit from knowing that other families are asking the same questions. Their shared message is that families need community alongside advice.
Additional Resources for Families and Schools
There is no shortage of opinions about children and technology. Families and schools need practical guidance that is current, balanced, and grounded in the realities of raising and teaching young people. These are strong places to begin:
- Common Sense Media offers media reviews, family guides, conversation starters, and plain-language explanations of new platforms and digital concerns.
- ConnectSafely provides practical, platform-specific guides to privacy, safety settings, parental controls, and emerging online issues.
- Devorah Heitner helps adults apply mentoring over monitoring to privacy, reputation, mistakes, and children’s increasingly public digital lives.
- Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital connects developmental research with practical family guidance through its Five M’s: Model, Mentor, Monitor, Mastery, and Meaning.
- Family Online Safety Institute offers resources related to online safety, digital parenting, family agreements, and changing technologies.
- Raising Good Gamers helps adults understand children’s experiences with gaming and think about how to encourage safer, kinder, and more meaningful play.
Use these resources as starting points rather than scripts. Better information gives us better questions and better language for making difficult decisions together.
Films and Series Worth Discussing Together
A documentary or docuseries can give families, faculties, and school communities a shared place to begin a difficult conversation. Choose one that matches the age of your audience and what the group is ready to explore.
- Can’t Look Away: The Case Against Social Media (2025) – Ages 15+: Family stories, serious harms connected to social media, technology-company accountability, and the systems surrounding young users.
- Childhood 2.0 (2020) – Ages 13+: Growing up with smartphones, social media, gaming, and constant connectivity.
- The Great Hack (2019) – Ages 15+: Personal data, political influence, and the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
- Screenagers Growing Up in the Digital Age (2016) – Ages 10+: Family conflict, limits, school, learning, and mental health.
- Screened Out (2020) – Ages 13+: Compulsive technology use, persuasive design, and families trying to change their habits.
- Social Studies (2024) – Ages 14+: A five-part docuseries following teenagers as they share their experiences with social media, identity, relationships, comparison, and growing up online.
- The Social Dilemma (2020) – Ages 13+: The systems platforms use to capture attention, shape behavior, and keep people returning.
Please Note: Before showing any film or series to a school or community group, check its public-performance and educational-screening requirements. Access through a personal streaming account does not necessarily include permission to host a group screening.
The film should begin the conversation rather than finish it. Afterward, ask these four questions: What did the technology add? What did it replace or displace? How did it make the people involved feel? Was it serving its purpose? Then ask one more: What did this help us notice, and what do we want to do with that awareness
When you’re ready to turn the conversation into the agreement
Joining a pledge, reading a guide, or watching something together all start the conversation. At some point your family has to decide what it actually wants — which moments are protected, where phones sleep, what happens when it’s time to stop, and what happens when something goes wrong. That’s what the Family Screen Time Code of Conduct is for. You build it together, so what you end up with is an agreement everyone had a hand in rather than a rule handed down.