'It's so difficult to continue to say no': Cork campaign to delay smartphone use

Parents in East Cork are on a mission to raise awareness of the dangers of smartphone use to young people.

Last October, a group of parents came together to form East Cork Smartphone-Free Childhood on the back of the growing grassroots movement of parents choosing to delay giving their children a smartphone.

Over the past couple of years, groups just like East Cork Smartphone-Free Childhood have been springing up around the country, including a national Smartphone-Free Childhood group.

In East Cork, the group comprises parents from primary schools all over the region, including Gaelscoil Mhainistir na Corann, Scoil Bride Midleton, Educate Together Midleton, Cloyne National School, and Dungourney National School.

These groups of parents liaise with the principals in their local national schools, keeping the smartphone-free message top of the school’s agenda. And they interact with other like-minded groups around the country, reinforcing the key message: smartphones are not for primary school kids.

The group will host a free event this Thursday (October 9) aimed at highlighting the dangers of giving young children smartphones.

Speaking at the event, which will take place in the Educate Together school in Midleton at 7.45pm, will be Sally O’Reilly, counselling psychologist and psychotherapist, who will talk about why it’s important for parents to hold boundaries when it comes to smartphones.

Director of Waterford Education and Support Centre, Dr Drian Barron, who spearheaded the smartphone-free childhood movement in Waterford, will also speak on the night. Community Garda Eddie Crockett will be on hand to speak about online safety and awareness.

There is real momentum growing around this issue.

In 2024, Ireland’s main mobile operators backed a Department of Education-led initiative to keep childhood smartphone-free.

As part of that initiative, parents at most of the East Cork schools in the group signed a commitment to not buy a smartphone for their kids while they’re in primary school.

It’s about education too, and shining a light on the issues of cyberbullying, harmful online content, and the impact of social media on children.

There is a real appetite for information among parents.

In September, Cloyne National School hosted internet safety advocate Maureen Griffin; a similar event in Gaelscoil Mhainistir na Corann early in 2025 attracted hundreds of parents from the area to learn more about how they can protect their children from online dangers.

All of this effort appears to be having an impact.

The number of children under 13 who own a smartphone dropped in the past year, according to a 2025 CyberSafe Kids report. This can be in part attributed to the growing influence of grassroots smartphone-free childhood movements around the country.

“It’s good news,” says Laura O’Donovan, a member of the East Cork group, and a founding member of the Smartphone-Free Childhood Ireland group. “It gives us a bit of momentum as we move into the new school year.”

While the group organise smartphone-free pledges and events, they are clear that they need legislation if change is to really happen.

“Fine Gael mentioned the CyberSafe Kids report and published an online safety survey, but we need legislation. We all know the dangers now, we need a ban on the sale of phones and social media to kids under 13. Parents on our own, as much as we’re trying, are still struggling,” says Laura.

Like other parents in the group, Laura experienced the daily pressure to get a smartphone for her child as her eldest moved into secondary school.

“It’s so difficult to continue to say no, when other parents relent and buy phones, and suddenly your child is one of the only ones without a phone. It’s so rare to see a child starting secondary school without a phone and access to social media.”

Though she eventually bought a smartphone for her child, Laura says they are insisting on limits to its use, and there is no social media on the phone.

Other parents are turning to other solutions, like buying their kids a so-called dumb phone “we bought one for our daughter but she was so embarrassed by it, she wouldn’t take it anywhere with her,” says Laura.

A new solution is proving more acceptable to tweens. The Balance phone is the brainchild of Carlos Fontclara and Albert Beltran from Spain, and is essentially a stripped-back smartphone, with no access to social media, games, adult content or gambling sites.

“It does have the internet, but you can’t download social media. A lot of parents in our group, and I actually know a couple personally, have bought it for their gang starting in first year. They can use it to call, text, WhatsApp, and of course, there’s the internet, so they can do things like shop online. They can download the likes of Spotify and that kind of thing, but no social media apps at all. It seems to be a good ‘in-between’ option,” says Laura.

The phones cost in the region of €300, and an app is available which can add restrictions to some existing phones, which essentially turns them into Balance phones.

“These are good alternatives, particularly for that age group of children just transitioning into secondary school,” says Laura.

“It’s about trying to find a happy medium.”