Yondr boss needs smartphones EXPELLED from colleges

When I sit down with Graham Dugoni, a pioneer in banning smartphones from schools, it is clear he practises what he preaches. The US-born entrepreneur and former professional footballer tells me he has not owned such a device for more than a decade and has no plans to get one.

Instead, Dugoni, 39, produces from his pocket a dark grey flip phone, made by Sunbeam Wireless, which looks like it dates from a pre-iPhone era. Today, these are known as ‘dumb phones’.

Given what his business promotes, owning a more sophisticated handset would no doubt spark accusations of hypocrisy.

Dugoni’s firm Yondr specialises in creating what it calls ‘phone-free spaces’, offering sealed pouches, lock boxes and other devices to stop people constantly reaching for their mobiles.

As concerns mount about the effect of smartphone use on society – especially children and young adults – it is a busy time for the business, with schools among its fastest-growing customers. 

Dugoni says the boom in demand from the education sector is designed to repair what he calls the ‘fractured’ social fabric that smartphones have caused in schools, highlighted in the award-winning Netflix series Adolescence.

‘You have students constantly using their phones for ChatGPT,’ he says of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, ‘or to take pictures of classmates and post them online.

‘This can result in bullying. But more than that it becomes a crutch that’s used whenever a difficult situation emerges, whether socially or with things like homework.’

Removing devices from schools is the way forward, he contends.

‘Once you make a space phone-free, things spring back to life. We hear students eat more at lunchtime because they are not worried about being filmed or photographed in an awkward position.’

While he may have been ahead of the curve setting up Yondr in 2014, Dugoni’s anti-smartphone evangelism has boomed as the effects of long screen time and doom-scrolling become better understood.

In an ironic twist, the company traces its origins to San Francisco, next to Silicon Valley, which gave the world the very smartphones Yondr is now seeking to restrain.

‘When I started the company, I was going door-to-door in a camper van and explaining the concept of phone-free schools to headmasters,’ he says. ‘Now we’re speaking to entire school districts and local authorities running hundreds or thousands of schools.’

The pouches have a lock that can only be released by putting it into a device near the exit of a phone-free space – a bit like the devices used for removing security tags on clothes in shops.

Some of the pouches have ‘Faraday cages’ – a metallic lining to block signals to further remove temptation. Dugoni says the firm saw a spike in demand in the pandemic, when parents became increasingly aware of how much time their children were spending on phones during lockdown.

‘I think a lot of parents watched their kids use remote learning and understood, in a more visceral sense, what it meant for their child to be at a screen for such a long time and what that could do to them,’ he says. ‘The pandemic was a huge tipping point for us.’

From its humble beginnings in the camper van, Dugoni’s empire now covers 45 countries, including the UK where it launched its first school partnership in 2018.

He says that the firm’s school-focused arm grew by 300 per cent last year and that ‘around 3 million students’ globally are using some form of Yondr product every day.

Despite its success, he won’t be drawn on Yondr’s finances, saying only that it has been profitable ‘since 2016’.

But will he ride the growing wave of the anti-smartphone backlash by taking the company public?

Dugoni, still Yondr’s controlling shareholder, says he doesn’t focus on ‘fattening up the business’ for a stock market flotation, but adds the idea of eventually listing is ‘not crazy’ to him.

The firm also has strong links with the entertainment industry. Live venues are increasingly opting for pouches and lock-boxes to help fans enjoy performances at events without having to peer through a sea of phone screens.

One of his main backers is US comedian Dave Chappelle, while clients include singers Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney, as well as tennis star Serena Williams.

Celebrities are looking for privacy in a world where they can be constantly recorded.

‘There’s a huge range of people in all different sectors of society that are looking to create phone-free spaces, and our role is to help them do that,’ Dugoni says.

But schools are his main focus. Last year, the firm’s pouches were used in a phone-free trial in two Edinburgh schools that could be expanded across the city.

It has also recruited Sir Nick Gibb, a schools minister under four Conservative prime ministers, as a strategic advisor to assist in the drive to create more phone-free institutions in the UK.

It comes as Labour is considering banning under-16s from accessing all social media, following a similar policy in Australia.

Last week, Science Minister Liz Kendall announced a three-month consultation on measures to keep children safe online, which would include the under-16 social media ban, also backed in a recent vote in the House of Lords.

Dugoni says: ‘I think the legislation that is moving around children and social media is good. It helps to address a part of the cultural change we need inside spaces like schools.’

And despite his push to expel smartphones from schools, he denies he would ever promote an outright ban on the devices, saying such an idea is unrealistic.

‘I’m not for telling people what to do. I like to think Yondr allows people to decide for themselves,’ he says. ‘A phone-free school can give children a taste for an experience they’ve not had. They can then take that experience and do what they want with it.’

But he admits that being without a smartphone in today’s world comes with its challenges.

‘A lot of conveniences are now woven through smartphones. Maps, venue tickets, even paying for things. It’s a pain. I fundamentally disagree with telling the average person that they are now required to own a device costing hundreds of pounds to navigate the modern world,’ he contends.

For Dugoni, his efforts to help young people experience the world away from screens also have a personal element as his two children, aged three and six months, grow up in an increasingly smartphone-addicted world.

He tells me: ‘If I do my job right, by the time they’re of an age they can have a smartphone, they won’t want one.’