Eden “did not in a million years” expect to be presenting these concerns to a room full of MPs in Parliament. But as Adolescence gripped the nation, last week she and SFC’s co-founder Clare Fernyhough presented on the dangers of smartphones and social media, the necessity of smartphone-free schools, and the important role that educational leaders and head teachers play in it all. The main aim was to show MPs across the country what they have done in north London and how to do the same for their areas.
Nova Eden goes to Parliament to present to MPs[Missing Credit]
Eden’s background – in psychology and teaching mindfulness and meditation to children – had primed her to galvanise the support of head teachers in north London in banning smartphones. From September, 103 primary schools in Barnet will not allow the devices to be brought in and 23 secondary schools will aim to remove them from the school day.
“I started off as a professional, and a passionate parent,” she says. “But it's just escalated, and the support has been fantastic, and I’ve been working with councils, educational leaders, public health teams and MPs. And then one of the MPs said, ‘why don't you come to Parliament and talk about the importance of smartphone-free schools and discuss how other areas and other regions can follow what you've done?’
“And it was brilliant. There must have been about 50 MPs. One from Scotland; I’m delighted that he travelled all the way down.”
The creator of Adolescence, Jack Thorne, has urged the government to raise age limits on social media. The conversation has started: the Safer Phones Bill, introduced by Labour MP Josh MacAlister, and including potentially raising the digital age of consent from 13 to 16, is next being debated in July.
Eden says the “first and most crucial step” should be to prohibit social media for under-16s in the UK.
“We have done some great work around the Safer Phones Bill, but it's not enough. Decisive steps are being taken by other governments and countries, but here there's a massive gap in our legislation, and we really need to step up and protect children.”
The second step, she believes, should be making all schools smartphone-free. And she recommends 16 as the earliest age for children to have a device.
Nova Eden presents to parents at Fortismere School[Missing Credit]
Eden is “passionate about instilling positive mental health in young minds” and has been involved in the campaign since the beginning. What sparked her concern was an article about Molly Russell, a 14-year-old girl from northwest London, who took her own life after being pushed over 2,000 harmful posts about suicide and self-harm into her news feed. Eden read it when the SFC movement was starting to take off, and joined immediately.
“Her father continues to speak up [saying] that eight years later, there's no evidence of any real change. Tech companies are still pushing this dangerous and harmful content into children's news feed.”
Eden’s focus is on digital wellness, and helping families who are struggling with the challenges that we are all facing: excessive screen time, social media, and smartphone gaming.
“I feel very strongly about encouraging a play-based childhood and trying to get children off screens. We know that tech companies have rewired childhood and changed human development on an almost unimaginable scale,” she says.
There is, she adds, “overwhelming” evidence of alarming and rising levels of depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide in children, which have all been connected to using smartphone and social media at a young age. A 2023 study by the Global Mind Project highlighted that the younger a child is given a smartphone, the worse their mental health outcome is.
“Going into schools, doing workshops, I've really noticed that in the current cohort of children in Year 6, a lot of them are excessively gaming. The vast majority are now getting smartphones. But the most worrying thing is, it's getting younger and younger. I see children in Year 2 and 3 with smartphones. It's really concerning.”
She points to NHS data that in the past decade, outdoor accidents have reduced by 70 per cent but self-harm incidents in children have increased by 93 per cent.
“What we know is that children are no longer outside and pursuing all the activities that they need for healthy development. They're not socialising as much face to face. They are indoors, alone on their devices for hours and hours, and it's causing a huge array of problems.”
One of these problems is a loss of attention and focus. But while phone addiction is a problem for everyone, it’s our children who are suffering the most. That’s because the prefrontal cortex of their brain, which is responsible for decision-making, is not fully developed until the twenties. “So they find it absolutely impossible to self-regulate,” says Eden. “As parents we've been doing things because everybody else is. We're giving out smartphones and letting our boys game for hours. But this excessive screen time is changing the plasticity of their brains, and it's doing a lot of harm.”
She warns that social media is particularly affecting young girls, their chronic social comparison leading to body dysmorphia and eating disorders. But boys are more likely to suffer from excessive gaming, because it's highly addictive in the same way as social media. “It taps into that dopamine reward pathway,” she says.
There are additional problems with games: the prevalence of shooting and killing in a Fortnite, and strangers seeking out children playing Roblox online. “So it's all very worrying,” Eden says.
One of the first Jewish schools that announced they would be going smartphone-free was Akiva, in May 2024. Eden is proud to be part of the school – her daughter is there. She also connected with parents at Eden Primary School, which was proactive early in the campaign. Meanwhile, on the secondary side, JFS insists on phones kept in pouches, a method that JCoSS will follow in the new academic year.
Eden’s journey began when she started a campaign at her sons’ school, Belmont, after finding other people who were spearheading the movement, and opened the conversations with other parents. She started bringing people together, and felt “very strongly” that the campaign should reach a wide network of schools, reaching all children.
She credits her success with getting the head teachers on board first. She started contacting heads of education in certain boroughs and Barnet, where she lives, was “very receptive”. They invited her to present at a meeting with 70 head teachers. She was then recommended to go into the Haringey head teachers meeting, then Ealing.
Parent talks at schools – to raise awareness of dangers of smartphones and social media, and the importance of delaying both – followed. The third part of the model involves giving workshops directly to the children.
“One step led to another. Once I started giving talks and schools to the parent communities, everyone was like, ‘Can you come into my other child's school?’ The support has been overwhelming.”
The demand is so “overwhelming” that she has had to take on people to help her, and has expanded into corporate organisations, where she can reach an even wider network. She’s been joined by Eliza Krigman, who is also running her own digital wellbeing business, and is booked to speak at Clore Shalom and Alma this Spring to kickstart their SFC campaigns.
While the support has been “incredible”, Eden agrees it is going to be difficult to enforce an outright ban. However, it is about raising awareness among parents, and government support.
“We're all just conforming to that social norm of giving our child a smartphone, because nobody wants their child to be socially isolated during a crucial stage of their development,” says Eden. “But with government guidelines in place to say you're not allowed smartphones until 16, that helps us as parents to say to our children: use a brick phone. They're much safer without having that internet constantly in their pockets.”
