Whistler’s Jenny Perez has seen debilitating addiction first-hand.
Growing up in Peru, one of the world’s leading producers of cocaine, she watched friends and loved ones come and go from rehab. Others didn’t make it that far.
“They’re young and I’ve lost many of them,” she said.
That pushed Perez, a local immigration consultant, to learn more about neuroscience and the impacts addiction has on the brain. Then, after becoming a mother, “I could see people getting hooked to devices,” she said. “Not just adults, but kids.”
By the time her daughter was in third grade, Perez said more and more children in elementary school had smartphones. But anytime she would bring it up with school administrators, she felt like she was fighting a losing battle.
“I thought at one point I was crazy. People couldn’t understand why I was so passionate about this,” Perez recalled. “Not everyone was on the same page. People told me I needed to embrace new times.”
It was that sense of isolation that eventually inspired Perez to found Unplugged Canada last year, a non-profit dedicated to delaying the use of smartphones for children until at least age 14 and raising awareness of the growing concerns related to children and smartphone use. The organization also encourages parents to delay their kids’ social media use until at least 16.
"Our movement is basically based on the fact that schools take a lot of time to change,” noted Perez. “Technology has been ingrained in the school system. They have the big tech companies doing their best possible job marketing innovation as the best thing for our kids. As a learning tool, it’s proven to have little benefit compared to the flipside: impacts on mental health and cognitive development.”
According to Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Canada’s largest mental health hospital, 35 per cent of Ontario secondary students spend five hours or more a day on electronic devices. One in two students report excessive screen time and sedentary behaviours. A report from the U.K. research agency Childwise paints an even starker picture, finding the average British 12-year-old spends 29 hours a week on their smartphones. Heavy smartphone and social media use have been linked to higher rates of depression, anxiety, chronic stress and low self-esteem.
“This movement is about prioritizing our children’s mental health and their social and emotional well-being by delaying smartphones,” Perez said. “We believe in the power of collective action. It’s not about rejecting tech altogether but making the right protective choices for our children.”
Modelled after a similar U.S. organization called Wait Until 8th, Unplugged Canada invites parents and caregivers to sign a pledge committing to delaying their kids’ smartphone use until 14. Currently, 1,670 caregivers from 329 schools across Canada have signed on.
More than mere lip service, the pledge “activates” once five families at a school from your child’s grade sign it. Unplugged Canada will then notify the signatories and share a list of family surnames who have also signed so you can connect, an effort to mitigate worries of isolating a child from their peers for not using smartphones. (The pledges are otherwise confidential, and parents don’t have to use their children’s full names to sign up.)
“By signing the pledge, parents join a community knowing they’re not alone. That’s the power of it,” said Perez.
Along with hosting regular webinars featuring experts in fields such as mental health, education, and tech, Perez also wants Unplugged Canada to play an advocacy role at the government level, particularly after the Liberals’ Online Harms Act failed to pass last year.
“We want to push the incoming federal government to prioritize online safety for kids in their party platform,” Perez said.
Learn more, and sign the pledge, here.
