Correction
To a few typos and with apologies
Unplug to Uplift: ACHING for a Tech Safe Society
Dr Lisa Hutchinson
For those of you who may not have read our coverage of the outstanding Safe Tech International webinar event: Unplug to Uplift, which live-streamed on 1 November 2025, we are re-posting this summary write up. We noticed a few typographical errors in the original version and apologise to our readers. These minor errors have now been corrected. Enjoy!
The Safe Tech International team has been working for some years to raise awareness about a number of issues, including those pertaining to the tsunami of technology in our world. We are at a cosmic juncture in a world in flux, where technology and AI accelerate and magnify whatever they touch. We all want to give our children the nurturing, the skills and love they need to grow into wise, compassionate, and contributing members of society. Is the way technology is now being implemented going to help or hinder attaining these goals? Members of our community, including teachers and celebrities, have started to speak out about the growing concerns regarding the effects of screentime on children’s wellbeing. This prompted Safe Tech International to host a Webinar Event on Saturday 1 November 2025 to highlight the collective efforts of many groups around the world that are working together to protect children’s interests and those of us all. This Substack summarises the talks from the 12 speakers and the Q&A summary.
Emily Cherkin, The ScreenTime Consultant (USA)
A well-known speaker, author, consultant and Associate Professor of Public Policy. She is also co-Chair of FairPlay: Children’s Screen Time Action Network, and the lead plaintiff in
a class action lawsuit against one of the largest Ed-tech companies in the world. It is not hyperbole that failing to address the havoc wreaked by the technology industry on childhood and education is a direct threat to democracy around the world. The choices we make today will define our future, and there is urgency in our work. Emily’s talk was presented in three parts: the beginning, middle and end.
The beginning: Emily spent over a decade as a middle-school English teacher and during this time she witnessed the rise of smartphones and social media use among her students and the simultaneous shift to digital tools. She noticed her students would come into class fraught with anxiety from social media posts. Children hold the devices of divisiveness and distraction in their hands, never free from the spin and churn of their online lives in an offline world. After delving deeper, Emily learned an eye-opening lesson! Technology is not just a kid problem, but an adult problem that is impacting children. Emily defined Tech Intentional, which has a specific definition associated with three key pillars:
1) Less is More
2) Later is Better
3) Relationships and Skills before Screens
The Middle: Emily highlighted how many students “don’t know how to type or write”, and Ed Tech is deleteriously affecting children’s learning and is not being used or often taught responsibly. Parents cave to peer pressure and blindly accept new and extremely problematic cultural norms. Children are getting younger and younger when getting their first phones. We need to do the hard work of teaching our children resilience and grip, because these are the skills they will need to thrive. It is our job now to ask these three questions when we offer the table, smartphone, or games:
1. What do we gain?
2. What do we lose or replace?
3. What do we model?
The End: Phone-free schools and childhoods are finally mainstream topics of conversation and advocacy efforts across the globe. Hijacked neural pathways are no match for reality. We make policies and rules to keep smartphones at bay during the school day, but we hand children their ipads and chromebooks in the name of learning. It is time to resist the notion that technologists know more about learning and teaching than teachers do. We should raise caution about the use of educational technology products in the classroom. Ed Tech is not effective, safe, or legal. Children are watching porn, and are being groomed on school devices in the name of the future of education. A good start point is to bring back hard-wired computers, ethernet and provide technology education not educational technology because Ed Tech is not Tech Ed. Less is More >> Later is Better >> Relationship and Skills before Screens.
Jess Kingsford, PhD, Founder and Co-Director of Happy Hearts Parenting (Australia),
discussed the impact of technology on children’s moral development, and on their mental and emotional wellbeing. Happy Hearts Parenting have recently expanded their work into the community with frameworks and practices and a “culture of mutual care”. Their mission is to empower parents and educators with practical tools and strategies to help children be more connected, and more tuned to the needs and interests of others.
Moral development is about distinguishing and learning to tell right from wrong i.e. how to engage with moral reasoning or solve moral dilemmas. It is the process of becoming a certain kind of person. We recognise that person when we describe someone who cares about and contributes to the wellbeing of others. The process of moral development involves the development of ‘other focussed’ skills, behaviours, and attributes. Intuitively this requires awareness of others, sensitivity to the experiences of others, attunement to the emotions of others, experiences of empathy and compassion towards others.
Digital technology is interfering with moral developmental processes. The current environment that children are growing up in is not conducive to satisfying these requirements. Children and adults in our societies are increasingly ‘dis-connected’ from one another and increasingly self-focused. Studies in Australia and other countries show a decline in overall mental health. Sadly, 36% of young people report high levels of anxiety, depression, or both. Moreover, youth mental health problems have increased by almost 50% since 2007. Children are continually ‘plugged in’ to devices, disconnected from others, self-focused and have stunted moral development. What can we do about all of this?
We can help children develop healthier mental health attributes. For instance, a healthier balance between self-focused and inter-dependence with others. This involves feeling, knowing, and cultivating a sense that we all fundamentally need each other (inter-depend-ence). A study in Harvard that began in 1932 shows that a strong sense of our inter-dependence with others is one of the best predictors of long-term mental and emotional wellbeing. At Happy Hearts Parenting this is exactly what they are working to promote across a wide range of settings. Overall, they are helping parents and educators to guide children to develop ‘other focused’ skills, behaviours and attributes, a stronger sense of interdependence with others, a healthier balance between ‘me’ and ‘we’, and a healthy moral development journey.
Lluna Porta Catalan, Spain, believes our hyperconnected world and associated challenges can only be tackled if families, educators and institutions work together. She is on the Board of Smartphone Free Childhood to raise awareness, and is a long-time campaigner for the protection of children’s rights both online and offline. She is also a concerned mother to teenagers who are navigating the digital age, and discussed the disturbing issue of children’s exposure to pornography. The hypersexualisation of girls and women is a great concern, and the effects that porn and illicit content on the internet have on children. Essentially addiction and porn go hand-in-hand. She presented a 10-point countdown:
10: 10 years old is the age a lot of American boys look for porn – some are younger.
9: 9 out of 10 (90%) of Spanish university students believe that online pornography represents how people have sex in real life; hard porn is now mainstream.
8: This is the age that Spanish children often access pornography accidentally. Pornography is actively looking for children! The business offers more points the more minutes you watch.
7: The age one boy had admitted he had watched porn.
6: A French neuroscientist who writes about “Screen damage: the dangers of digital media for children” suggests 6 measures: never watch screens before school; no screens for children under 6 years old; never watch inappropriate content; never use devices in the bedroom; do not use devices 2 hours before bedtime; avoid screens at mealtimes.
5: The age when one boy had practiced fellatio on his 2-year old sister!
4: The age that a boy practiced oral sex because children copy adults!
3: Useful proposals from Smart Free Adolescents that she wants to highlight from a survey of 30,000 responses: 1) inform families to avoid social media until children reach 16 years of age; 2) regulate social media and its access until age 16; 3) attend schools with no phones; 4) promote alternatives for children to be offline.
2: All crimes in Spain by minors have declined, with the exception of violence from children towards adults, and sexual violence.
1: Zero is the minutes her son uses a smartphone; a choice he made and he is happier.
Diego Hidalgo Demeusols, Founder of the OFF: A Movement, Spain. Diego is an author, entrepreneur and fierce campaigner of the social, cultural and political effects of our relationship with digital technology. The Off Manifesto has been signed by numerous personalities and celebrities, and explains we are reaching a critical point regarding our relationship with technology, especially the type designed to exploit human interaction. Off Manifesto is an appeal to re-invent the ‘Off Button’. Their goal is to mobilise humanity against what they call “tech alienation” and focus on specific areas where tech is misaligned with human interests, such as education for children and teenagers. This movement was initially started in Spain, but it is now going global. The Off manifesto was launched 18 months ago, and one of the first initiatives was the “Off Tech Initiative”. It is based on a White Paper they drafted with psychologists, educators, parents, and teachers, exploring why we should drastically limit the presence of digital technology in schools, and why school education should be part of the solution and not the problem of hyperconnection.
Using technology from a young age is not preparing children for a highly digitised world at all; children are more subject to misinformation, and there are privacy and data issues related to Educational Technology. The ethical issues are also profound. Off Manifesto offers solutions, and has a broad public outreach. A notable success in Madrid is the decision to de-digitalise educational technology in primary schools, which is a huge win!
Activism efforts to take people to the street included organised demonstrations in favour of the right to disconnect, with “Let’s Protect Children’s Health”. This was part of a collective of 12 demonstrations around Spain on the same day, with support from 20 organisations, including pediatric societies. Another initiative for 2026 is “Off February” a concept that mirrors “Dry January”. A digital sobriety that includes erasing social media apps for 1 month, and replacing time spent on social media with other non-digital activities that enhance wellbeing, such as reading, playing sports, and time in nature.
Theodora Scarato, Special Expert, to the International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields (ICBE–EMF). Theodora has worked on the issue of wireless radiation since 2012, when she realised that everything she could do as a parent could not fix the wider technology issues in our society. When she worked as a clinical social worker in schools and ADHD clinics, she noticed a change in her clients, especially children. This culminated in an overuse of technology in children and adults that is causing addiction to video games, with behaviours comparable to clients with drug addiction. She was shocked by the volume of studies on this topic and the collective published findings.
Technology causes sleep disturbances, anxiety, depression, emotional problems, social isolation. Moreover, the addictive algorithms exploit children’s attention, and hijack their reward pathways. There is also the issue of wireless radiation: no premarket safety testing exists for long-term exposure. So-called safety limits, not just in the USA but in most countries, are based on the assumption that heating effects are the only harmful effects, which is not the case. Metal devices and metal worn on our bodies increases exposure to harmful radiation. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided that the limits they established back in 1996, based on data from the 1980s, did not need to be changed. As a result, the Environmental Health Trust sued the federal government. The FCC was ordered to respond to how regulations protect children, as well as wildlife, as extensive research shows harm. There has been no response since 2021.
When Theodora delved into this issue, she was shocked by the enormous number of studies that exist. Measurements of radiation show that children absorb radiation at higher intensities and deeper into their brain compared with adults. They have smaller heads, thinner skulls, and more water in their brain tissues, that increases conductivity and absorption rates. Notably, the reproductive organs are also exposed. Cumulative exposure applies to all manner of devices, such as laptops, tablets, cellphones. The current regulations do not consider cumulative exposure from multiple devices. Studies are available on the: The International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields (ICBE–EMF.org) website. Hundreds of scientists are calling for protection and to reduce exposure. We need to put children at the centre of the decision-making processes as we move forward with technology. Technology is being rolled out with no pre-market safety testing or post-market evaluation or surveillance for people, animals or the environment.
Shannon Rowan, California, USA. Author of The Red Shoes: Our Devils Dance with Technology and How We Can Stop It. Shannon was harmed by EMFs, which led her to research addiction and harm. She described toxic algorithms, negative feedback loops, and downward spirals. Disturbingly, she found that social media, gaming, news, entertainment, and all apps are designed with one purpose: to maximise user engagement; thus, they are designed to be addictive. Alarmingly, the youngest demographic possible (as young as 6 years) is intentionally targeted by tech companies. In all technologies, such as search engines, gaming, shopping, user engagement design is embedded in everything.
Users of social media feeds develop addiction, with problematic use in 25% of Facebook users, noted in children as young as 9 years of age. Obviously this results in loss of productivity, sleep disturbances, and it impacts relationships. The feeds themselves can induce negative comparisons to unrealistic ideals of beauty, talent, success, fitness, etc. all amplified by algorithms. The algorithmic design is engagement-based and uses meaningful social interaction (MSI) to create algorithms that favour the sharing and posting of the most sensational content. Tech companies ignore teen user wishes to view more positive content; instead the algorithms are designed to favour content to keep users hooked.
The “social feed” algorithm used by Meta changed from “maximizing a user’s time spent in one session” to “maximizing as many sessions as possible, while knowing that “frequencies of sessions was a strong indicator of problematic use [addiction]”. The Infinite scroll was designed to induce a trance-like state called “flow”, which distorts a user’s sense of time, with the interface designed to not interrupt this flow. Tech is designed to direct users not to what they want to see but rather “what they cannot look away from” – feeding the spiral. User engagement happens even when users reject recommended content. Users are flooded with unwanted content that makes them feel bad. This is especially problematic for those at risk for self-injury or suicide.
Debra Fry, mother and campaigner, England, told her very sad and moving personal story of her daughter’s passing, and highlighted ways we can foster safer approaches to technology. Debra’s daughter, Jenny, was fine until she went to secondary school and her problems began after the school decided to install Wi-Fi. For a short time, Debra had installed Wi-Fi at home because the school set all the homework online. Within 2 months, Debra noticed Jenny was not the same caring girl, and she started developing symptoms, including headaches, aches, pains and problems sleeping. She developed electrohypersensitivity (EHS, now renamed EMR Syndrome or Havana syndrome). Jenny struggled to concentrate, so would seek out different classrooms in the school to avoid smartphone radiation. Debra decided to contact the National Radiological Protection Board, and she discovered that their research was minimal, and on the basis of a few measurements from a Wi-Fi laptop, the technology was rolled out into schools. After a 4G mast was installed right by Jenny’s school, within days Jenny deteriorated and one morning Debra discovered she had taken her own life.
Debra has campaigned and given talks for over 10 years to raise awareness to other parents about these issues. Since Jenny’s death, Debra always takes copies of suicide prevention material with her, and has managed to avert another adolescent from suicide. It is extremely important that we all fight to protect children. It is not just Wi-Fi or smartphones, but also Alexa and Fitbit devices. Anything wireless should not be around children unless it is an emergency. There is no need for Wi-Fi in hospitals or schools, as wired ethernet cables are a suitable alternative. Debra offers guidance to ACHES (Adult Child Health and Environmental Support), a not-for-profit organisation established to help to protect adults and children. Debra recommends readers watch the interview between Prince Harry and Prof Jonathan Haidt on children and the harms of social media.
Bronwyn Desjardins, Head of EdTech for Smartphone Free Childhood, South Africa.
Bronwyn wants to help families and schools reclaim childhood and transform education into a place where connection comes before distraction, and where technology supports rather than replaces real wellbeing. We are now living at Wi-Fi speed, but our bodies and minds are not built for it. She helped to set up Reclaiming the Rhythm of Early Childhood: showing how unplugged spaces restore childhood and connection. Their schools provide safe places for young people to learn about themselves through friendships, play, problem solving, face-to-face lessons and activities. At breaktime, children can be outside to reconnect with nature, explore, and build emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills. Schools can be sanctuaries for empathy, compassion, curiosity and play: all teaching skills for life not just teaching to test. Technology is not the enemy, especially for students with learning needs and those in remote locations, as it opens doors, accessibility tools, and provides support across countries. These are gifts we want every child to access when the time is right and in the right way.
Smartphone Free Childhood isn’t anti-tech; rather, it is a slow tech approach to childhood. We ask parents to delay access to smartphones until high school, and social media engagement until age 16. Parent Pact and our Phone-Free School Network support families and schools in practical ways, such as asking parents to pause, delay smartphones, set device boundaries and create playgrounds for imagination and joy. The Parent Pact and Phone-Free School Network support families to go slow tech together. Over 4000 parents have signed the pact nationwide and 26 schools have already signed up for phone-free school initiatives, joining a growing community dedicated to restoring balance in children’s lives. When schools and families choose to Unplug and Uplift the results are clear. Families and teachers consistently report fewer anxieties, deeper play, longer concentration and the development of real social bonds.
Caroline Fallon, Kids Unplugged, Belgium, is a parent and taught in secondary schools in Ireland for 15 years, and she has since been involved with Kids Unplugged in Belgium. This is the sister organization of Smartphone Free Childhood in the UK. Caroline offers a supportive role on a local and regional level. She has been uplifted to see parents are finally connecting and creating groups about this issue. Parents are signing pacts to agree to delay buying smartphones for children until they are aged 14. In Belgium, Kids Unplugged was rolled out in Flemish-speaking schools in December 2024. Now, over 300 schools across Belgium and over 1000 parent pacts have been signed, even before official rollout to German and French-speaking schools. Kids Unplugged has written an open letter to the government, which has been signed by 500 Belgian doctors and other professionals.
Kids Unplugged is not anti-tech: it is about giving choice back to parents. Until last year, the choice not to give a child a smartphone had been taken away from parents. The collective movement reaches and supports parents, children and schools. In Ireland, Smartphone Free Childhood is also going from strength to strength with 3000 pacts signed. The internet is not censored or regulated, so avoiding owning devices in under-16s might help. She is persuading her own children to stay offscreen at home.
Antoine Mestrallet, Raise Your Eyes (Lève les Yeux) and Co-Founder of hérétique, has a shared mission and goal to promote disconnection in order to better preserve human attention. They run workshops on the impacts of digital technologies for children, teenagers, teachers, and parents using fun and participatory methods. One workshop “More Books Less Screens” has proved successful. Another event “Raise Your Eyes” invited over 2000 people. They funded Collectif Attention and organised events to bring in preventive measures and associations working on electromagnetic exposure. They also do political advocacy, and run organised events. The 4th edition of an event will be held on 24 January 2026 in Paris, to highlight an open discussion with the public. He emphasises they are an independent organisation and do not have funding from the tech industry. He is also part of Hérétique, an art project that limits technology influence. They also create tools with a free app that does not have algorithms or personal data collection (Le Chateau).
Robert Broad, Look Up Hong Kong (Unplugging HK Childhoods). Robert has lived in Hong Kong for almost 30 years: it is an amazing city of 8 million people, with more than 1000 schools. Hong Kong has wide open spaces with over 75% being farmland, parks and beautiful tropical beaches. But, they have a smartphone problem: a penetration rate of 3 phones for every person in Hong Kong. Robert founded Look Up Hong Kong 18 months ago, to build awareness and a shift in culture. Their mission is to champion childhood and empower families to prepare children for a digital future while safeguarding their wellbeing.
Their movement is built around four pillars: 1) to delay smartphones in children until they are 14 years; 2) to delay social media access until age 16; 3) to encourage smartphone free spaces, particularly in schools; and 4) to embrace real-world experiences. However, it became clear that parents needed support too. So they embarked on a Childhood Digital Wellbeing Survey to understand the dynamics across the whole of Hong Kong. They interviewed a representative demographic of 651 parents across Hong Kong, and discovered parents are struggling. As many as 65% spend too much time on smartphones, and 76% say they cannot live without their smartphones. This is impacting their health: physical health (67%), mental health (51%), work performance (38%), social consequences (38%), and online safety threats (29%) are serious concerns. Despite these concerns, children in Hong Kong are getting smartphones earlier than their parents would like (aged 9 rather than aged 13 as in other countries) and more than 86% of 12/13-year olds have smartphones compared with 70% of children in other developed countries.
Many children exceed the guideline recommendations of screentime use and more than 45% spend 2 hours or more per day on their devices. More than one third have just one or no outdoor activity per week outside school. Many parents (84% surveyed) agree that delaying social media in children to the age of 16 years would benefit both mental and physical wellbeing. Parents who describe themselves as heavy smartphone users are more likely to support delaying online access for their children. There is overwhelming support for these four pillars: 73% support children not having smartphones until aged 14; 64% support delaying social media until aged 16; 89% support restrictions on smartphones in schools; and 85% have signed the pact to voluntarily agree to delay smartphone access.
David Charalmobous, Founder of Reaching People, England, explained most activists use communication and information interchangeably, but they signify quite different things. Information is given out, communication is getting through. Most people do not have an information problem, they have a communication problem. How do we get information across to others, so that they change their views or behaviours? Presenting facts to each other is not a very efficient way to get people to change their ways. It is about experiences. David summarised three aspects to achieving effective communication: by framing information in ways that have a much better chance of getting through.
1. Questions
● Questions act as conversational keys, unlocking information that would otherwise remain hidden.
● Questions invite the other party into a collaborative process – turning monologue into dialogue and fostering engagement.
● Questions guide attention and can reconnect people to their thought process – a lot of the time there is actually not a thought process, as they have been conditioned by stories on the television to think a certain way.
2. Metaphors
● These are very powerful as they drive behavioural and cognitive change – a metaphor is a compass in a dark forest that helps us to plot a new course when lost among our habits and beliefs.
● It shapes judgement and decision making – the metaphor is a tinted lens through which we view a scene.
● It also enhances memory and learning: a metaphor makes information sticky, creating a route for recall. Remember a fact and include a linking metaphor.
3. Stories
● Stories that move you to a level that you cannot explain.
● Those who tell the stories rule societies (Plato).
● Narrative transportation theory: deep absorption in stories changes attitudes and beliefs.
● Moral of the story. Our brains are wired for stories, they are easier to recall and retell
● Stories also change people’s unconscious mind.
● They provide context and meaning, linking new facts to similar frameworks for deeper understanding. Stories change us at deep levels.
Tip: we naturally tell stories with our friends and families, but when discussing important information, we often go into ‘academic mode’. This does not work. Tell stories using your natural abilities, as this lowers resistance.
Concluding Remarks
We have a right to be disconnected and the right for students to learn offline in schools and in the home. There is an International Manifesto for a Universal and Constitutional Right to be Offline. Also, for adults to bank and do other transactions offline. We want to advocate to be disconnected from the internet when and where we so chose. We must insist we maintain this right now, and encourage more natural and less tech-connected options, or we might lose it forever. If we each take one small action for digital safety and sobriety, we can ground what we have learned into physical reality.
● Consider turning off routers and phones at night; use ethernet cables
● Use wired-in technology to access the internet rather than Wi-Fi
● Consider the Digital Detox challenge: no phones between dinner and breakfast
● No phones at meantimes or in family gatherings
● Participate in Off February in 2026
● Consider signing declarations and joining manifestos. Tim Arnold has set up a petition for the legal right to access services without a digital device.
For our children to thrive, replacing technology with getting family values back and playing outside and social interaction is a massive step forward: www.safetechinternational.org