By Martin Wright

Copyright positive

Greenwell takes up the story. “So I wrote this Instagram post” – in effect a brief manifesto for what became SFC, in part inspired by other nascent campaigns in Spain, and encouraging people to join the WhatsApp group. “Then we had some friends over, and I didn’t look at my phone again the whole evening.”

By the time she did a few hours later, what she saw was to change her and her husband’s life. “Suddenly, the group was full of random people from all over the country.”

“And the Instagram post had gone absolutely wild,” adds Ryrie.

Over the next few days, things became wilder still. The WhatsApp group hit its ceiling of 1,000 members, so new groups started. “Within a couple of weeks, every county in Britain had them,” says Greenwell. People were getting in touch, asking for advice, offering to help. “All these questions were popping up,” recalls Ryrie, “and people were expecting us to have answers.”

“I’ve never experienced anything like it,” says Greenwell. “Even though we were sat in our house in Suffolk, suddenly we were in the eye of the storm.” She turns to Ryrie: “I remember you saying: ‘It feels like a magical and terrifying tornado has just come into our kitchen.’”

As director of a branding agency, Ryrie adds: “I’ve been involved in quite a few startups, some of them have been quite successful, but never before have I felt anything like that kind of energy and momentum. There was so much demand, it had struck such a nerve. I thought: ‘If this was a business, there’d be this huge market opportunity, because we had hit on something that everyone wants, but no one has.’”

Pulled by purpose

It was decision time. Do they go with this momentum or let it slide? Thinking about the smartphone future that might lie in wait for their three children, they didn’t debate for long. Ryrie started to wean himself off his branding agency, Greenwell gave in her notice at Positive News, and they threw themselves into making SFC a reality.

A couple of friends came on board, Ryrie drew on his experience and some of his colleagues at his agency, and, as if often the way with an idea whose time has come, some initial funding materialised, in this case care of the Tenacious Awards, a project that provides funding and mentoring to campaigners and journalists. Further donations from private sources followed.

Fast-forward just over a year, and SFC has a team of six, including its founders – but punches way above its weight thanks to thousands of supporters and volunteers. At its heart is the Parent Pact – now signed by 140,000 families “on every continent apart from Antarctica” – which allows them to commit to the ‘no smartphone until 14 / no social media until 16’ stance, and encourage their kids’ schools to do the same. As Ryrie puts it, this is all about people “stepping into their power as citizens and saying: ‘I’m actually going to do something here; I’m going to put my hand up and make a difference.’”