One of 20 Million: Mum’s Wake-Up Call Sparks Digital Reset

A mum-of-two reveals she was “heartbroken” when her child called her out on her phone use at home.

Sarah Long, 28, from Worcester, admits she would spend up to 10 hours a day online scrolling on her phone, listening to music and watching TV - a habit that hit its peak after she launched a career as a parenting influencer on TikTok with her friend Rhiannan.

She's telling her story as Openreach explores the online habits sparking family disputes in 2025.

The researched was carried out after the company reached 20 million UK homes and businesses with Full Fibre broadband.

Sarah - who recently upgraded to Full Fibre broadband with Openreach - started posting on TikTok on her account MumSaidWhat?! when she was pregnant with her first daughter and quickly built a community online, gaining 45,000 followers in three years.

Since starting a full-time career on social media, Sarah - who lives with her partner Rob, 27, and her two daughters Willow, 3, and Mia, 1 -  says she quickly became immune to the amount of time she spends online and didn’t realise the impact it had on their family dynamic.

She said: “We try to limit the amount of time we spend on our phones but picking mine up is like a reflex. I don’t even think about it sometimes, it just happens.

“It never really bothered me until my daughter Willow said to me ‘Mummy just get off your phone’ when she asked me to play with her.

“She’d never said anything like that to me before and it literally broke my heart. In that moment she realised that I was giving my phone more attention than her and I thought to myself, how am I putting a little device before my child?

“It was a huge reality check and made me question what I was actually doing at that time that my daughter had to practically beg me to put my phone down.

“My partner Rob and I also pull each other up a lot on how much time we’re spending online. We have conversations daily about putting our phones away and spending more time together.”

And Sarah isn’t alone.

New research from Openreach reveals almost half of Brits (48%) have been asked by their loved ones to put their phone down to spend more time together as a family.

And it’s not just the kids who are the ones online, with one in 10 (9%) parents admitting it is them who have been told off by their children for spending too much time online.

Sarah said: “We’ve been looking at ways on how to be more present at home, especially as the girls are growing up so fast, but it is hard when your job demands you to be online.

“In the digital world, we’re always trying to do things as quickly as possible, but we never thought upgrading to full fibre would help improve the situation.”

Data from Openreach also showed more than a third (36%) of adults admitted slow internet connections can lead to frustrations at home and a quarter (25%) said having faster and more reliable broadband would likely reduce the number of arguments at home.

Sarah said: “Before we had full fibre installed last month, I was trying to fill out an online questionnaire and it took ages to load.

“It used to take me double the amount of time to do things online, but now I can use that extra time with my family, whether it’s playing with the girls or getting chores done around the house.

“It hasn’t reduced the amount of things that I need to do because I still need to do those things, however it makes it much quicker.”

While Sarah navigates balancing how much time she spends online, she’s keen her two youngsters don’t follow in her footsteps.

She said: “It’s getting the right balance and it is really tricky as a parent in this day and age.

“It’s controversial but I do think children should have some screentime. They’re growing up in a world where their life will revolve around screens. They need to know how to use the internet and more importantly, how to use it safely.

“I’m working on how much time I spend on my phone in front of the girls and upgrading to full fibre has been a gamechanger in doing this.”