‘Little Audrey’, as she is affectionately known, has now been temporarily plunged into darkness and replaced with a girl hunched and glued to a glowing screen.

The “scrolling girl” campaign from Team Kids and Dairy Farmers aims to highlight the consequences of replacing a childhood dominated by play with one filled with screens, and aspires to conduct 450,000 skipping sessions in schools across Australia.

It includes a 10-week skipping challenge in 270 schools, with nearly 8000 skipping ropes distributed to children.

Renowned child psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg is a fan of the campaign.

“The fact that we’ve replaced a play-based childhood with a screen-based childhood has been a disaster for the psychological and physiological well being of children,” he said.

“I regard this project as one of the most important campaigns we’ve run in Australia for many years.”

Despite Australia’s world-leading social media ban, teenagers are spending close to three hours a day on small screens.

That’s three times longer than spent playing sport or other physical activity, as captured in the YouGov survey of more than 1000 parents conducted to coincide with the active children campaign.

‘Little Audrey’ is a historic animated neon sign in Abbotsford, inner Melbourne, and was possibly the first animated neon sign in Australia when first erected in 1936.

Nearly two-thirds of parents feared their children’s device usage was negatively impacting their sleep, physical activity, mood, and other markers of wellbeing.

No more than two hours of screen-time a day and at least one hour of physical activity are recommended by the federal government.

Upwards of 70 per cent of kids were doing less exercise than suggested.

Founder and managing partner at The Royals, Steve O’Farrell said his company’s involvement was a no-brainer for him.

“When a problem of this magnitude challenges a brand’s core values, it presents an incredible opportunity to create real impact by sparking conversation and driving action.

“Huge credit to the Dairy Farmers team for having the ‘oomph’ to make it happen.”

Australia’s social media ban on under-16s began in December last year.

While there has been an overall decline in youth accounts, the eSafety Commissioner’s compliance report found about seven in 10 children still had an account on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or TikTok.

Roughly half still had an account on YouTube.

UK non-profit organisation Molly Rose Foundation research concurs, and has found that two-thirds of Australia’s 12-15-year-olds can still access accounts on major platforms just as they did before the ban was put in place.

Their newly released survey of 1050 children found that TikTok and YouTube retained 53 per cent of previous youth users and Instagram 52 per cent.

Respondents told the pollsters they have been able to access the platforms without having to find workarounds.

The findings come as the British Government is in the midst of planning new restrictions for youth access to social media, and officials in several European countries have vowed to implement bans in the near term.

“These results raise major questions about the effectiveness of Australia’s social media ban and show it would be a high stakes gamble for the UK to follow suit now,” Andy Burrows, chief executive of Molly Rose Foundation, said in a statement.

“Parents and children deserve better than a flawed ban that delivers a false sense of safety that quickly unravels.”

Several sites are under investigation here in Australia for possible breaches of the laws.

While social media ban workarounds abound, more young people support the ban than oppose it, separate surveying by educational technology provider Year13 suggests.

With AAP