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Stick to bricks: how Xplora is starting a national movement to delay smartphones
Sten Kirkbak is the CEO and founder of Xplora Technologies – a Norwegian-based company that is on a mission to help families choose the right devices for their children at a time when the negative impact of phones and social media are in the spotlight like never before.
Sten set up the company in 2016 following a successful career in telecommunications. After briefly losing his child in a busy shopping mall, he decided it was time to explore what basic tech safety and connectivity might look like for parents of younger children.
Xplora came to life out of a scary personal experience. What do you think parents are scared of today?
I really feel for parents at this time. They have been put in an impossible situation where they’re at the mercy of big tech and social media platforms. Children of primary and secondary school age are being given smartphones because of peer pressure, parents’ natural instinct to want to know where their children are, and because it’s started to become ‘the norm’ to hand down an old smartphone. But smartphones are products built for adults. They have open internet access, social media, addictive apps, games, and more. I think that is a very scary scenario, with effectively anyone being able to contact your child. Our aim is to delay the smartphone until much later in teenage years, and we have a solution to do it.
You launched the XploraOne in the UK earlier this year, and you call it a ‘startphone’. What do you mean by that and why launch it now?
In the UK there is a very important debate going on. Should there be an age limit on social media? Should children have access to smartphones in, or even outside, school? How old should they have to be and how should this be implemented? The UK, and other governments around the world, are having these important conversations, and it’s moving very fast. New legislation around bans for smartphones in UK schools is making it clearer for parents, schools, police and children.
We need a new, safer option for 8-16 year-olds who need to start developing independence, and are allowed to take their ‘brick’ phones to school. We launched the XploraOne earlier this year, and we call it a ‘startphone’ because it has the look and feel of a more sophisticated device with a touch screen and GPS, but without the apps, open web, and addictive social media features that are causing so many problems in our young generation. Parents control the contact list and can set modes for sleep and school. It is deliberately designed to delay the need for a smartphone.
Why do you think smartphones and social media are so dangerous?
There are obvious risks, such as screen addiction and harmful content, as well as important growth milestones such as missing out on the joy of socialising with friends in person, playing, and staying physically active. But data and privacy is a huge aspect that is often forgotten.
When you sign up to a social media platform, besides giving away your name, location, birthdate, etc, you’re actually giving away everything related to your interests, your emotional feeling, what’s triggering those emotions, where you are vulnerable, and even the patterns that are building, or stripping away, your self-esteem. The platforms also profile your political and sexual orientation, mental health indicators, social status, and more. It’s bad enough that an adult should give that away; how is a child expected to grow up healthily when that data is being taken and used against them at an age when they are not able to properly process and understand the information they are being served? That’s why this debate is so important and we need to see change right now.
What do you want to see happen now?
We need a global movement in the UK and beyond: one that sees us as a society delaying smartphone use for children and rolling back to simple devices, such as brick phones and devices without internet, apps and social media. We believe a three-step process is necessary. First, governments should immediately establish clear age limits for social media use. Second, age verification should be required and implemented. Finally, technology platforms must be held accountable. The UK government is making rapid movements in this direction, and other nations around Europe are too. In a recent survey we conducted of UK consumers, half (49%) wanted to delay smartphone adoption for their children, and over half (54%) cited inappropriate content as the top concern around smartphones.
What’s the next step for you and Xplora?
We’re working with a range of campaign groups and charities in the UK to lobby for stricter limits on smartphones, social media use, and more. Many parents will be considering buying their child’s first phone this summer, or switching to an alternative in light of the government’s recent ruling on the smartphone ban. We think it’s time to hold big tech accountable and rethink what it means to be a child. We always say ‘it takes a village to raise a child’. That means parents, children, educators, authorities, health experts, researchers and more, working together to bring about change. We’re committed to building technology that supports a safer, healthier digital life for children. We hope parents and children want to join us on that journey.