Emil Rustige, 7, leads protest over parents on mobiles

Emil Rustige makes his point — with a little adult help — at a Hamburg protestAXEL HEIMKEN A seven-year-old boy from Hamburg has become the leader of a children’s crusade to stop parents gawping at their smartphones countless times every day.Emil Rustige’s protest march through the city centre has prompted a generation of parents to wonder just what it is about Lady Gaga’s Instagram account, or Twitter videos of competitive hotdog eating, that is so much more compelling than their own offspring. Martin Rustige, 37, said his son’s patience had finally snapped when they took his little sister through a car wash for the fir
st time. “She was very excited on the back seat and kept saying, ‘Dad, look here! Look here!’” Dr Rustige said. “But I just had my head down, looking at my mobile phone. In the end it was very clear. Emil just said: ‘Papa, put your phone away’.”

Emil got the idea for the protest after attending a counter far-right demonstrationAXEL HEIMKEN/PA An American study published this week suggested that more than two thirds of teenagers prefer to talk to their friends over social media rather than face to face. A recent British survey found that a quarter of 30-something British women checked their phones at least 200 times a day. Dr Rustige said he had found himself in much the same position, scrolling through updates while he was chopping potatoes or while Emil was asking him to join in with a game at the playground. “I’m a paediatrician,” he said. “I don’t need a study to know that adults’ relationships with their children suffer from their day-to-day usage of their mobiles. Some people I know found it damaged their relationships with their wives. It’s even harder with young children. They don’t understand what we’re doing.” Emil, whose parents had taken him on a counter far-right demonstration a few months earlier, had the idea of doing something similar about mass parental smartphone addiction. Last weekend he and about 50 other children marched through the streets of the Altona district carrying home-made placards emblazoned with slogans such as “Flight mode on! You’re with me now” and “We’re here! We’re loud! Because you only ever look at your mobiles”. As far as Emil is concerned, the protest did the trick: his parents have given up their smartphone habit. “He’s seven years old and he never had the aim of being an international activist,” Dr Rustige said. “He changed something. We asked him: has it changed enough? He said: ‘Yeah, I’m fine now.’ “For us, the action is over. The smart way to really communicate with each other is to look each other in the eyes instead of reaching for another emoji.”