ACHES ‘Weekly Picks’ Substack
ACHES was set up to promote, enhance and protect human and environmental wellbeing. ACHES provides a forum to raise awareness and advance the truth about legal, medical and scientific information relating to current and emerging technologies. ACHES “Weekly Picks” will highlight the most relevant news pieces from our partners and collaborators to raise awareness of the health harms caused by such technologies, and also chronicle the much-needed solutions to enhance our health.
Unplug to Uplift! Announcing Speakers
Over the past few weeks, we have highlighted the Safe Tech International zoom webinar event titled “Unplug to Uplift” taking place on 1 November 2025, 5 to 7pm in the UK (12 to 2pm US Eastern time). This event is open for registration. The event will cover social movements encouraging a Smart Phone Free Childhood and other concerns owing to technology health risks, as well as potential solutions. Subjects will include surveillance, digital IDs, addition to technology, children’s health, social media harm, and much more. See below to view the prestigious international speaker list:
Emily Cherkin, M.Ed. The Screentime Consultant (United States)
Jess Kingsford, PhD Founder and co-director of Happy Hearts Parenting (Australia)
Diego Hidalgo, see Demeusols diegohidalgo.net and the Off Movement (Spain)
Bronwyn Desjardins, Head of EdTech for Smartphone (South Africa)
Theodora Scarato, MSW Director of Wireless Program at Environmental Health Sciences (United States)
David Charalambous, World Foundation for Health, Founder of Reaching People (United Kingdom)
Lluna Porta, adolescencialliuredemobils.cat Catalon (Spain)
Shannon Rowan, see website wifi-refugee.com (United States)
Robert Broad, Communications Consultant, see www.lookup.hk (Hong Kong)
Antoine Mestrallet, Antoine NGO Lève les Yeux (“Raise Your Eyes”), (France)
Carolyn Fallon, Kids Unplugged Belgium (Belgium)
Debra Fry, Why Die for WiFi, (United Kingdom)
Safe Screens: Working to End the Screen-Based Childhood
We wanted to draw the attention of our readers to a very helpful resource and campaign “Safe Screens: Working to End the Screen-Based Childhood“. This initiative believes that as a society we can and must demand better for our children. The aims are to protect children from the harms of unregulated EdTech and addictive smart phones. Ongoing campaigns include the limiting EdTech as this should be the exception, rather than the norm. Another aspect is the move to create better legislation to protect children from addictive devices, and harmful content online.
What the Government Won’t Tell You
There is a growing body of evidence demonstrating smartphones have become not just distracting, but are highly addictive and erode children’s mental health and wellbeing. On the website UsForThem, an extremely concerning study commissioned by King’s College London posits that “1 in 4 children use their smartphones in a way consistent with behavioural addiction.” Not only are there a plethora of mental health harms, but an ever-growing list of physical and behavioural harms including cyber bullying, eye damage, anxiety and depression, sleep disturbances, and more extreme harms such as self harm and suicide. When the government makes educational decisions to promote EdTech, and increased Wi-Fi and digital-based education, we have to ask: do they really prioritize the safeguarding and welfare of our children?
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