As a rule, jealousy is not an emotion social experiment TV tends to elicit. To gain insight into the human condition, such programmes usually involve nightmare-level punishments: volunteers agree to sleep on the street or go to prison or marry a total stranger or live like a Victorian person or be marooned on a desert island – the genre is schadenfreude central. Yet watching Swiped: The School That Banned Smartphones – which follows a group of year 8 pupils from Essex (plus hosts Matt and Emma Willis) as they surrender their phones to a lockable glass cube for three whole weeks – my response is one of pure envy. What a treat. If only a production company would be so kind as to take my phone away from me.
Swiped, says Dr Rangan Chatterjee as he guides us through the technicalities of the experiment, marks the first time a digital detox has been studied on this scale. This is probably not the coup it first seems. Science has been slow to solidify a causal relationship between smartphone usage and mental health issues, but every sentient being with social media access knows how detrimental an endlessly refreshing feed is to sleep, concentration, inner peace and general happiness. Let’s just say the final data isn’t the most earth-shattering discovery of our time: if your smartphone leaves you distracted, exhausted and anxious, chances are it’s doing the same to your child.
But Swiped is still very much worth watching for its more anecdotal insights. As they await the results, Emma and Matt speak to parents, children and doctors about the scourge of the smartphone, weaving deeply relatable concerns about their own teenagers’ usage into the conversation (Emma was under the impression Matt had put “age restrictions” on their devices; he says he doesn’t even know how to – genuine bickering ensues). The totally ordinary children involved in the experiment reveal some horrifying numbers: one child got her first phone at four, another says she once woke up to 3,000 notifications, another spent almost 10 hours a day on his phone during the summer holidays. We learn that a quarter of 11-year-olds have seen pornography, while research shows first-time users to porn sites tend to be shown violence or nonconsensual sex.
Yet it’s the language that is most discomfiting. These devices are not just “changing the fundamental nature of what it means to be a child”, as Chatterjee puts it; they are redefining what it means to be alive. For many teens, smartphones have become synonymous with existence itself; more than one child refers to their device as their “life”. To be posting on social media is to be, full stop. Parents, conversely, are grieving these children, as if they have been transported to a different realm (“I miss her,” says a teary Matt Willis of his teenage daughter. “I feel like I lose her to it”). Matt and Emma also meet parents whose children have actually died in tragic circumstances closely linked to their social media use.
The existential threat posed by smartphones was never something an accessible two-part Channel 4 documentary was going to comprehensively address, but simply flagging the sheer size and profundity of the issue feels like a start. And the programme does effectively home in on some of the more tangible aspects of the problem – such as the grim content teenagers have access to on their phones. Porn sites, for example, do not currently require meaningful age verification: using two new phones, Matt and Emma encounter highly disturbing material in a matter of minutes. This, the secretary of state for science, innovation and technology, Peter Kyle, tells them, will change next summer thanks to a new online safety act. Another mini-experiment sees the Willises browse TikTok as 13-year-olds; within hours they are being served content about suicidal ideation and domestic abuse. Frustratingly, little progress is being made on this front.
By the end of the experiment, the children seem largely ambivalent about being reunited with their social media accounts. Sadly, they don’t seem to have much choice. Despite being newly convinced that 12-year-olds don’t need smartphones, the children’s general consensus is that there is no way back for them: their lives are now inextricably tied up with their devices. Perhaps, one boy suggests heartbreakingly, future generations could enjoy smartphone-free childhoods. That would involve a load of algorithm-addled adults getting their acts together – AKA coordination between parents, schools, tech companies and the government, which at this stage seems a borderline mythical prospect. Until then, it genuinely feels like our best hope is for Channel 4 to roll out those lockable glass cubes nationwide.
• Swiped: The School That Banned Smartphones is on Channel 4 now
