They are everywhere and are the main battleground for parents and children in the home.
Smartphones have been linked in many studies to poor mental health, sleep disturbances, and screen addiction, but life as we know it cannot function without them.
One UK city is trying to keep devices out of young people’s hands until they are at least 14 years old.
Parents at a school in St Albans, southeast England, have signed a pledge not to give their children smartphones until they reach that age.
One of those parents, Jessica Pine, says this is the collective action she and others have been crying out for.
“No one wants their child to be the odd one out. Everyone wants to fit in, especially at this young age. That’s why everyone waits until they’re 14,” Pine said. If so, it means your expectations have changed.”
“If we all feel that way, let’s actually all come together. And even if no one has a cell phone when they’re 11 years old and that expectation isn’t there, we You will become stronger.”
Jessica Pine is part of a group of St Albans parents who have vowed not to give their children smartphones until they are 14. (ABC News: Andrew Greaves)
The campaign, which has been running for six months, distinguishes between smartphones and basic phones that can be used for communication but cannot connect to the internet.
Justin Elborn-Cloud, executive head teacher at Cunningham Hill School in St Albans, says transitioning children to simple mobile phones is a key goal of the smartphone-free childhood movement.
“We talk a lot about smartphones, dumb phones and brick phones, replacements for the old Nokias we used to have,” Elborn Cloud said.
“Parents want to know that they can get in touch, or that they can let you know if they missed the bus or something like that…especially since phone booths are a bit of a thing of the past, so it doesn’t have to be that way. But it’s a smartphone.
Around a quarter of five to seven year olds in the UK own a smartphone, compared to 12 to 15, according to a survey of 2,480 parents by Ofcom, the UK’s independent communications regulator. By age, the rate jumps to 95%. Old man.
Ms Elborn-Cloud says increased access to smartphones outside of school is having an impact on student performance in the classroom.
“What we’ve really noticed over the last few years is that kids are having less and less ability to concentrate,” she says.
“It’s now called the ‘TikTok brain,’ and the idea is that kids have such short attention spans that if you try to teach them everything in a classroom, you have to start right away and move on. , because you can’t swipe the teacher and you can’t swipe the classroom, but you have to stay focused. ”
Executive head teacher Justin Elborn-Cloud says he has seen how smartphones can negatively impact learning. (ABC News: Andrew Greaves)
St Albans’ ambitious plans to become the first city to implement a policy that prohibits children under 14 from having smartphones is gaining momentum in other parts of the country, with 66,000 More than 1,000 students’ parents have signed a grassroots no-smartphone pledge. Interest group smartphone free childhood.
However, this idea was quickly retracted when we spoke to 12-year-olds at City of London Academy High School.
Everyone already had a smartphone and had no plans to part with it.
“It’s going to be quite difficult because I’m already used to cell phones and use them a lot,” said eighth-grader Roman Kandelaki.
“When you don’t have your phone, your mood changes. You don’t feel the same, you feel like a different person.”
Classmate Nosa Aiuyo agreed.
“There are so many things happening on social media that people would miss if they didn’t have a cell phone, so I would miss something,” he said.
Nahla Naji, 12, also said that although she was aware of the downsides of owning a smartphone, she would find it difficult to give up her smartphone.
“The best thing is you can really do anything. You can take pictures, videos, anything, but the worst thing is it’s how people get bullied the most,” she said.
The phone can be a “learning tool”
The UK government is considering new legislation that would ban smartphones from all schools in the UK. This is a policy that France is currently experimenting with.
Australia and some states in the US are also considering banning social media for children amid growing claims that social media use is linked to poor mental health.
Psychologist Dr. Jonathan Haidt is the official ambassador for the Free Smartphones in Childhood campaign.
His best-selling book, The Anxious Generation, resonates with many parents and links the surge in anxiety, depression, and self-harm among young people to the explosion of smartphones and social media since 2010.
Psychologist Dr. Jonathan Haidt is the official ambassador for the Free Smartphones in Childhood campaign. (ABC News: Andrew Greaves)
But some experts, including Wojtekó Mirek of the Interdisciplinary Research Team on Internet and Society at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic, argue that the evidence is not as simple or conclusive as is being presented.
“To give an example of the correlation between social media use and depression and depressed mood, if we look at this correlation we can conclude that social media leads to an increase in depression, or vice versa. “We can conclude that there is the same amount of evidence that it probably leads to an increase in depression,” Mailek said.
“Every time we see evidence of correlation, we have to assume that both directions of causation are possible.”
Professor Sonia Livingstone argues that technology can have huge benefits for learning. (ABC News: Andrew Greaves)
Sonia Livingstone, professor of digital futures for children at the London School of Economics, said there was evidence to suggest that restricting phone use in schools could be beneficial, but there were no alternatives to a complete ban. He said he believes there is.
Professor Livingstone said: “Children don’t always live in perfect circumstances, so a phone can be an escape or help from difficulties in the offline world.”
“It’s also a learning tool…and I think we’re getting to the point where we’re sacrificing all of those benefits for fear of risks that we couldn’t otherwise manage.”
Experts and campaigners agree that tech companies and social media giants need to better regulate their services.
“I think the movement to make smartphones free for young children, and many of the other bans that are being called for, is a movement born out of frustration,” Professor Livingstone said.
“Many parents have long wanted the government to regulate big tech, but that hasn’t happened and now they feel they have to take action into their own hands.”
