If You Find Yourself on the Winning Team, Give the Other Side a Hand
Digital life works for many. But what about the ones it doesn't work for?
How would you feel if someone took away your smartphone tomorrow?
Not just your smartphone — your WhatsApp, your ability to send a photo to your family, the instant way you arrange to meet someone or speak with a loved one across the globe. What if that way of communicating simply stopped being available?
I know I’d be pretty upset. Sometimes, I rely on video conferencing to speak with my mother’s healthcare team. And I don’t worry too much about that access disappearing, because we live in a digital-first society. But here’s the thing — if you can imagine the frustration, the disempowerment of suddenly losing digital access, then you already understand how many other people feel every day about losing non-digital access.
And some people, the youngest, are not losing something they once had. They’re being denied something many of them have never had.
The petition I’ve launched isn’t about taking anything away. It’s about protecting what some of us still have — a life that can be lived without logins and passwords, without a mandatory screen between you and the rest of the world.
This isn’t about being against smartphones or apps or smartwatches. It’s not about pushing society backwards. It’s about balance. It's about recognising that while many of us embrace technology, others feel increasingly left out, forced into a digital life that doesn’t suit them, that they didn’t choose.
Older people especially feel this. So do some parents. So do children, in fact — though you’ll hear fewer of their voices because they don’t have the platforms to say it. If you work in public services, you’ll know it too. The overwhelming feedback from my work this year with teachers, doctors and families has been clear: this is not a fair fight.
So the petition is a flag in the ground. It’s not a demand for everyone to disconnect. It’s a plea — a reminder — that the right to live a different kind of life must be protected while we still can. Before choice is no longer a choice.
This is a moment to say: Brilliant - technology has improved many lives. But let’s not turn that success into a blanket policy, a one-size-fits-all mandate that erodes self-determination.
Let’s not turn connection into coercion.
And if you're someone who uses digital technology every day and loves it — well, you’re on the winning team. But if you care about fairness, if you care about a just society, and if you're someone who knows the difference between victory and domination — then you know what to do.
Because like sport, that’s what a fair game looks like. And that’s why I made this petition: not for one side to win, but for everyone to have a place on the field.
With love,
Tim Arnold
🖊️ Sign the petition:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/725049