Lady Frederick Windsor has opened up about her concerns as a mother in the digital age, admitting to becoming a "maniac mother" in her efforts to protect her two daughters.
Speaking candidly with The Telegraph, the 44-year-old, who shares Maud, 11, and Isabella, nine, with her husband Lord Frederick Windsor, son of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, revealed her initial reluctance to interfere with other parents' choices.
"I just didn't go anywhere near them," she said. However, as her eldest daughter approached Year 7, Sophie felt compelled to step in.
"But then I had to become that maniac mother who got everyone together before Year 7 and said, 'Can we maybe not do this?'" she added.
Sophie, best known for her role as Big Suze in Peep Show, admitted she had never been one to actively engage in class WhatsApp groups, preferring to keep a low profile.
However, her growing alarm at research highlighting the potential harm of smartphones on children's health and education spurred her into action.
According to Ofcom, the online safety regulator, a staggering nine in ten children own a mobile phone by the time they leave primary school.
Driven by her concerns, Sophie attempted to lead a parents' "revolt" against this norm. "It was so anti my nature to do that. [To be] the sort of noisy, irritating goose at the school gate," she confessed.
"The screen thing I was quite fanatical about because it was so obvious during lockdown that it was such a terrible way to learn."
The actress continued: "Year 7’s so hard and so stressful. [Maud] was already self-conscious about me being a mum who was against phones – there’s nothing less cool, I mean, what a loser. So my daughter's got one now."
Sophie clarified that Maud's phone is an old iPhone that allows her to send "sweet little texts" but doesn't have any apps enabled – a compromise many parents might relate to. Her children's school gave students iPads without parental content, much to Sophie's frustration.
"So they're on screen for a lot of the day," she noted. "They come home, they open up the damn thing again, and they're on screen for two hours doing homework. And it's such a physically unhealthy way to learn.
"It's so bad for their eyesight, it's bad for their posture, it's bad for their sleep rhythms."