When we think back to our childhood, we remember playing outside, using our imagination and scraping our knees on our torn clothes. The adventures and countless LEGO bricks of those days became the building blocks of who we are today. But the boxes once filled with toys, roleplay and social interaction now risk being replaced by a single intruder: the smartphone. Is a childhood spent scrolling really what we wish for our kids? 

With a powerful new campaign, KidsUnplugged wants to bring that question to the forefront. Selected for De Standaard Solidariteitsprijs, the full-page ad appeared on the back cover of the newspaper. 

In it, we see Wiske, in the iconic final panel of every Suske en Wiske comic book, not winking, but staring blankly at her smartphone. A painfully familiar image in today’s society, yet one that instantly takes us back to our own childhood. 

“Although it’s one of the biggest challenges of our generation, the debate around children and screen use has become unnecessarily polarized. That’s why we’re proud to support KidsUnplugged. Not to reject technology, but to embrace it in a sustainable way,” says Kwint De Meyer, Chief Creative at BBDO Belgium. 

KidsUnplugged is calling on parents, teachers and policymakers to give children back the freedom to explore, to play and even get bored. The organization advocates delaying the introduction of smartphones until at least the end of the second year of secondary school; and social media until at least the end of the fourth. Because you only experience childhood once. Let’s not let it end behind a screen. 

Special thanks to the Vandersteen family and Standaard Uitgeverij for granting permission to feature our childhood heroes in this campaign.