Matt and Emma Willis set to star in TV show set at Colchester school

Busted musician Matt Willis with his wife TV presenter Emma Willis
-Credit: (Image: Dave Benett/Getty Images)


An Essex school is teaming up with TV stars Emma and Matt Willis to see if students can go without their smartphones for 21 days. The group of Year 8s at Stanway School in Colchester will test their strength alongside the TV personalities for the Channel 4 documentary Swiped: The School that Banned Smartphones.

The two-part series aims to use the “pioneering social experiment” to learn more about how smartphones affect our behaviour. The Willis', who co-host Love is Blind UK, said: "Our lives these days revolve around our smartphones, and the thought of three weeks without them is quite honestly daunting, yet fascinating [...] The statistics on children's smartphone use are beyond worrying so the time feels absolutely right for the issue to be addressed." The pair added: "We're intrigued by the results of the experiment and hope it can spark change and have a lasting and positive impact on everyone”.

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Mr John Player, The Head of School at The Stanway School told Essex Live: “We were lucky to be selected as the host school of the experiment, which will involve students, and staff, giving up their phones for 21 days. It became clear to us that this depth of research had not been done before, and we saw this as an opportunity to be involved in investigative journalism that uses a genuine experiment to discover the effects of phone use on the education, well-being and sleep of young people. The Stanway School community is keen to find out the results of this investigation, when the experiment concludes.”

Led by Dr Rangan Chatterjee - the medical doctor, author, and presenter - the experiment will consult scientists, campaigners, and politicians to get to grips with how phones rewire our brains. As Chatterjee explains: "Technology has insidiously crept into every part of our children’s lives, including their school life [...] I think this is likely to have major negative consequences for children and society at large.”

Working in conjunction with The University of York, the students and stars alike will complete a series of cognitive tests and questionnaires at the start and end of the three week stint. They will be monitored by experts to determine how phones affect our cognitive abilities, attention spans, reaction times and memory. As well as looking at how phones impact sleep patterns, anxiety, depression, mood, stress, loneliness, enjoyment and social connectivity.

Professor Lisa Henderson and Dr Emma Sullivan from the University of York referred to the “extreme total ban” as a “first-of-its-kind experiment.” They hope the study will “empower parents to create safe worlds for their children, and be in a stronger position to campaign for the appropriate safeguards and legislation to put it in place.”

Channel 4 hopes this documentary will be a “catalyst” for the Government to re-examine a potential nationwide smartphone ban for children under 14 or 16. Louisa Compton, Head of News and Current Affairs at Channel 4 added that “this bold and timely exploration will blow [the smartphone] debate wide open and potentially lead to more parents waiting for their kids to reach a greater level of maturity before handing over a smartphone.” She says, “we hope this experiment will spark a broader debate around the role of technology in our children’s lives and potentially inspire new approaches to digital wellbeing in schools across the country.”

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