It’s Okay To Be Off-Grid If You’re A Kid
An open letter to the Mayor of London by Musician and Film Maker Tim Arnold
Dear Mr. Khan,
I write as a concerned Londoner and long-time advocate for our city’s cultural fabric, particularly through my work as founder of Save Soho. Today, my concern is not about buildings or venues but something far more critical: the well-being of our children and the digital norms we are shaping as a society.
I write regarding the recent advertising campaign adorning the London Underground, featuring a young woman — or perhaps a teenager — eyes closed, transfixed by the glow of her smartphone. The caption trumpets, “5G is coming to the Tube,” promising that by the end of 2024, 80% of Tube stations will be bathed in seamless mobile coverage — a commitment, we are told from the Mayor of London.
My focus is not on 5G technology itself but on the potential dangers of powerful advertising. The UK Code of Broadcast Advertising states that advertisements must not condone, encourage or unreasonably feature behaviour that could be dangerous for children to emulate.
As parents and health professionals campaign worldwide to protect their children from the numerous harms associated with smartphone apps, your administration is normalising the pervasive technology they’re fighting against.
As these parents work tirelessly, without resources for large-scale media campaigns, to preserve their children’s right to develop without the constant distraction of digital connectivity, London’s Underground stations now send an implicit message to children — and parents — that smartphone use is the default, leaving little room for alternatives. This reinforces smartphone use as the only acceptable norm, making other choices — like opting for less harmful feature phones (or ‘dumbphones’) or going without a phone entirely — targets of peer pressure and social exclusion, as highlighted in hundreds of news articles this year in the UK.
What You’ve Missed: Smartphone Free Childhood
This is not trivial: A Parent Pact has gathered 37,000 signatures, representing 56,000 children across over 9,000 schools who advocate for smartphone-free schooling.
Spearheaded by the Smartphone-Free Childhood movement and based on the original pact by Hannah Oertel’s Delay Smartphones group, this initiative is a testament to where our digital norms are heading. How, then, does your office’s advertising campaign — align with this movement?
You and I can recall Silk Cut or Benson & Hedges billboards looming through Tube windows in the 1980s. They no longer exist because they encouraged unhealthy norms.
Even within your own party, Labour MP Josh McAllister introduced the Safer Phones Bill in Parliament just last month, which speaks directly to these concerns.
EE is now advising parents on age guidance for smartphone use. Eye experts have explained links between screen time and shortsightedness, with more than 740 million children projected to have myopia worldwide by 2050.
Yet, Transport for London is wallpapering the Underground with an image of the exact activity that causes these issues.
While people across political spectrums and professions are actively working to protect children from overexposure to pervasive technology, your campaign is pushing a message of digital saturation that feels wholly out of step with the needs of London’s families — and the visiting families from abroad who are ahead of the UK on this issue.
Nations like Norway and France are moving decisively to restrict children’s exposure to smartphones and social media. The American Surgeon General, Dr Vivek Murthy, has called for health warnings on social media as has been called for by SafeScreens in the UK since 2022. The UK is still sadly behind the curve.
This is an invitation for you to lead and set the same duty of care by example.
Protect first, debate later.
I would greatly appreciate your response to these 3 questions:
1. Would you support my request, along with that of my co-signatories, to have all the posters removed?
2. Would you be happy for me to arrange a meeting between you and the group Health Professionals for Safer Screens who are leading the health initiative to protect childhood by delaying smartphone use? In 2015, your predecessor Boris Johnson accepted my invitation to show him the historic venues Stephen Fry and I were protecting with Save Soho. I would be more than happy to introduce you to my friends from the NHS who are helping to reshape digital norms in the UK, if this aligns with your goals for London.
3. Will you consider introducing a new campaign on the Tube that promotes the norm of parents and children connecting eye-to-eye, screen-free? A playful invitation for families to consider this valuable practice of child development that has always been essential for building relationships and social cohesion. A practice that according to NHS professionals, has lost its place as a norm in the digital age.
Transport for London already encourages us to “Be Considerate,” “Be Patient,” and “Be Kind.” All admirable messages — yet at risk of being lost if we’re all glued to our screens 24/7. Patience is not a virtue we learn from constant digital connectivity.
Analogue Inclusivity
Like me, you have heritage from another country, and we can both testify to today’s London as a bastion of inclusivity, from which we’ve benefited in ways that would have been unimaginable several decades ago.
London has long been a leader in creating a safe haven for those who once felt afraid to be themselves, offering a place to succeed with pride in their difference.
In this spirit, could London also lead in making offline-life a respected choice, free of shame? Very few messages encourage children to feel confident about going “screen-free”, while younger siblings watch older ones immersed in smartphones.
Conversations I’ve had with PSHE teachers, school heads and doctors over the past year reveal that children want to, but are scared to step outside these digital norms, pressured into smartphone use or bullied if they choose otherwise.
A little like how you and I might have once felt, in a once upon a long ago London.
When touring my film, Super Connected, which tells the true story of a teenage girl affected by screen addiction, I always speak to concerned parents on this issue, and it was their voices that came to mind when I first saw this insensitive advert.
There is now conclusive evidence of the harmful effects of smartphones on children, from dopamine depletion and early addiction pathways to inappropriate content.
The NHS even have an approved ‘Five-A-Day Tips for Healthier Screentime.’
Those of us who know what it feels like to be excluded due to our ‘differences’ must be the first to promote alternatives to this relentless march into digital dependency.
“It’s Okay To Be Off-Grid, If You’re A Kid.”
Connecting With What Matters
As children’s speech and language therapist Sandy Chappell told me on my podcast Super Connected Conversation this year:
“Learning language is two-way, serve and return, back and forth. It’s crucial for children to have that interaction. And that just doesn’t happen with screens”.
This is good stuff for us adults not to forget. But if kids don’t learn it, then they’ll never be able to remember it. Being connected isn’t a post, a comment or an emoji. It’s an eye to eye experience of expression which we learn when we are young.
In this rapidly evolving but uncertain digital future, we need leaders to be discerning about the new norms emerging before us, while also embracing the foundational values and societal norms that brought us to this point in history.
In Sum
There’s a phrase often used in the smartphone debate: “You can’t put the genie back in the bottle.” To those who say this, I’d respond — step aside and watch as more and more parents put that genie back in the bottle. What’s more, let’s help them.
I appreciate your response may focus on the economic benefits of a fully connected London — a city where travellers and commuters can remain online at all times.
This request is not about hindering business or restricting mobile connectivity but about protecting children from pervasive influences that impact their development.
The greatest hearts and minds of our nation, the ones that define our progress and set the standard for how we treat each other, were not people who were glued to their smartphones during childhood. From Sir Isaac Newton to Sylvia Pankhurst and Alan Turing to Queen Elizabeth II — these were people who, through their actions, were affirming our humanity, not exchanging it for an excuse to turn away from each other and gaze into our personal devices. They made their mark with a considered, patient engagement with the world. Not the digital dopamine diet of instant gratification.
I implore you to be a leader for London who understands that while advancing technology can bring benefits, it doesn’t always lead to social progress — especially when its presence is all-encompassing, and for young minds, often pervasive.
By removing this campaign image, you would be facilitating a simple yet powerful step toward a healthier digital culture for future generations. This gesture would acknowledge the growing evidence of the adverse effects of excessive device use on children’s attention and neurodevelopment, as highlighted by NHS professionals.
In the years to come, as more Londoners seek moments of genuine connection away from our screens, I hope you will look back with pride knowing that you took an early stand to safeguard spaces where we can connect face-to-face. This is an opportunity to lead by promoting balanced digital norms that support the well-being of children and families in our city. Let’s not wait. Protect now, debate later.
As an environmentalist asks for a tree to be saved amid the grip of gentrification, I ask that alongside digital connectivity, we also make space in London’s public messaging for real human connection. Let’s mind the gap, mindfully.
Yours sincerely,
Tim Arnold
Tim Arnold is the writer and composer of ‘Super Connected’, a nationally acclaimed album, film and theatre show exploring the impact that social media and screens have on families.
Co- Signatories (Add your signature here)
Midge Ure OBE, musician, singer-songwriter and record producer
Stephen Fry actor, broadcaster and writer
Revd Simon Buckley Rector of St Anne’s Soho
Kate Robinson Office of the Sir Ken Robinson Legacy
Dr Sanjiv Nichani OBE, consultant paediatrician MBBS, MNAMS(I), MRCP
Phra Vijit Akkhacitto Addiction treatment lecturer, Head Monk of Thamkrabok
Alix Ascough Head Teacher, Soho Parish School/All Souls CE Primary School
Dr Rebecca Foljambe MBBS BSc DRCOG Health Professionals for Safer Screens
Chrissie Hynde, singer, songwriter and artist, The Pretenders
Ronnie Wood, musician & artist, The Rolling Stones, The Faces
Guy Chambers songwriter, musician and record producer
Dr Claire Hallam MBBS MRCGP DCH DRCOG DFRSH DUMC, GP
Sophie Winkleman (Lady Frederick Windsor) — Actress / Campaigner
Alex Poole MBBS lon, Doctor, NHS
Tony Visconti (d.hc), record producer and musician
Sandy Chappell children’s speech and language therapist
Hannah Oertel, founder of Delay Smartphones UK
David Smallwood MSc, PG Dip, NCAC, addiction/childhood trauma therapist
Sandy Powell OBE, RDI, costume designer
Dr Angus Kennedy MD FRCP neurologist Safeguarding lead, Cromwell Hos.
Guy Holder Head of PSHE at The Harrodian School
Richard Norris music producer
Sonia Ahmad GP, Dr Azim And Partners
Sally Wood BA Hons, Producer, Sea High Productions Ltd
Jo Sharp Administrator, National Adult ADHD and ASD Clinic, S/ Maudsley
Kate Alderton BA Hons, actress, director and artist
Sarah Kershaw musician and performance artist
Tracey Gogarty MSc Manager, St Mary’s College Liverpool
Lisa Dillon BA Hons, actress
Lloyd Trott academy dramaturg, RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art)
Kevin Godley singer-songwriter, video artist, founding member of 10cc
Valerie Charlton, NDD, ATC, BA, artist and educator, special FX model maker
Paul Dimoldenberg Labour councillor, Westminster City Council
Anthony Polledri Bar Italia, Soho — Proprietor
Brian J. Gill Associate associate professor, Grayslake, IL USA
Sam Hart restaurateur: Quo Vadis, Barrafina, (Harts Group)
Daniela Maccari (Doctor of Classics) Dancer, choreographer
Steve Furst actor, comedian and writer
Michael Ray Wisely AEA/SAG, Actor/Director/Richmond, CA, United States
Stephen Hudson managing director of The Eye Company, Soho
Ellen Roome social media Law-Changing Campaigner, #JoolsLaw
Georgina Anderson, Therapist
Tony Shrimplin Museum of Soho
Geoffrey Norris Goetheanum diploma in creative speech and drama, actor
Mari Wilson pop and jazz singer
Allan Drozney set decorator in film. Toronto, Ontario Canada
Klaus Dobadka engineer, Gaimersheim Germany
Hugh Maurice Roberts BA Hons, PGCE, Teacher/Artist
Ben Pelchat music producer, Collingwood, Canada
Martin McDonald UoL, humanity strategist
Paul Le Surf food scientist, Home Curing UK
Jeffrey O’Regan librarian
Andrew Ellis retired civil servant
Karen Brace teacher
Rebecca Done vocalist
Sandra Peros retired business owner
Beverley Dean actress
Anne Marie De Witte BAA, building restoration, Ballickmoyler Ireland
Andy Pearson, product manager
Steve Edwards BA Hons, retired
Malcolm James Carlo musician
Roy Woodward retired
Jett Nyx author
Andrew Ronald Gray record dealer
Alison Yorke Administrator, NLDP
Carmen Harris BA Hons, Writer
Wayne Hoyle BA Hons, PGCE, JP, Magistrate
Janey D Holness B.Ed (Hons), former teacher
Jade Soar makeup artist
Ilknur Catikkas BSc Hons, mother
Emrah Catikkas DJ
Georgina Graham, Consultant
