Hingham Parents launch Wait Until 8th-Hingham Chapter

October 18, 2024 Submitted by the WU-8 Hingham Chapter

Wait Until 8th platform empowers parents to rally together through a pledge to delay giving children smartphones until at least the end of 8th grade.

A group of local parents concerned about the impact of smartphones on children announce the launch of a local Wait Until 8th-Hingham (WU8H) chapter. The founders are parents of Hingham elementary and middle school children, and all of them have 5th graders— a grade when many children are 10, the average age kids receive a smartphone in the US. They are asking fellow Hingham parents to sign a pledge delaying smartphones until the end of middle school, offering unity and support with that option.

Wait Until 8th is a national campaign creating awareness about the implications of digital technology on youth, and is centered around a pledge that empowers parents to delay giving their child a smartphone until the end of 8th grade. After signing the pledge, the commitment remains anonymous until 10 or more parents in the same school and grade have signed. At this point, the pledge becomes “active,” and parents are connected by Wait Until 8th with a list of names and emails of other families who have also taken the pledge. Founder of Wait Until 8th, Brooke Shannon, told The New York Times in June 2024: “The key to remember is that as long as your kid has seven or eight or nine families waiting with them, they don’t feel alone or strange or weird.”

The WU8H co-founders are Christina Earle, Margaret Estoff, Johanna Goulding, Lizzie Inglis and Sarah Sigovitch. Together and with some initial outreach, they’ve already activated pledges in their children’s grades at East and PRS— “cohorts” of 10 and growing. Each time a new pledge is activated or close to activating, an announcement is posted on the chapter’s instagram account: waituntil8th_hingham. At least seven grades across the HPS elementary schools have active pledges to date, with 3 other grades nearing activation with just a couple more families’ commitment.

While their initial focus is to encourage more parents to sign the pledge, WU8H’s broader objectives include building awareness on the impact of excessive technology use, evaluating solutions to create healthy boundaries with screen time, and encouraging more age appropriate real-life interactions. WU8H is reading The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt and looking at other frameworks to initiate discussion and change.

CONTACT:
waituntil8thhingham@gmail.com
IG: waituntil8th_hingham

According to Wait Until 8th, research-backed reasons to delay smartphone use include:
• CHANGING CHILDHOOD: Many childhood pastimes are pushed aside for online amusement, with kids spending 3-7 hours online daily.
• ADDICTIVE QUALITIES: Dependence on a smartphone may produce some of the same addictive brain responses similar to other addictions.
• ACADEMIC DISTRACTION: The mere presence of your smartphone reduces cognitive capacity and test-taking brainpower, and 2+ hours of daily use lowers scores on thinking and language tests.
• BRAIN DEVELOPMENT: Children who spent an excessive amount of time on screens (7+ hours) were found to have a premature thinning of the cortex.
• SLEEP IMPAIRMENT: One study showed excessive smartphone use was related to shorter total sleep time in children, which has adverse effects on health and growth.
• BEHAVIOR CHANGES: Tweens who spend more time on screens have a higher likelihood of developing disruptive behaviors, including angry or irritable mood, argumentative or defant behavior.
• ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION: Constant stimulation of the brain causes the hormone cortisol to rise, and loss of tranquility can create anxiety disorders. Children are not emotionally equipped for many online behaviors and can feel inadequate comparing themselves to others on social media.
• CYBER BULLYING: Children who receive smartphones in elementary school versus later in childhood are more likely to be involved in cyber bullying.
• SEXUAL CONTENT: Over 40% of online youth users have been exposed to online pornography and more children are aware of “sexting.”
• SOCIAL MEDIA LINK TO EATING DISORDERS: In addition to showing overedited, fltered photos, social media sites also offer users ways to fnd content like weight loss challenges and unhealthy dieting.
• TECH EXECS ARE DELAYING: Many technology executives wait until their child is 14 or older before they allow them to have a phone.

There are parent resources on the Wait Until 8th website (waituntil8th.org), including a list of smartphone alternatives for kids, such as basic phones and smartwatches. These alternatives allow for texting and communication, but do not have access to an internet browser and app store, which is the source of most problems with smartphones.

For more information, please visit waituntil8th.org, and on instagram: waituntil8th_hingham