by When Steve Jobs climbed on stage in San Francisco to unveil the first iPhone in 2007, he promised a revolution. Undoubtedly, the crowd at the Macworld Conference and Expo went wild as he conflated iPod, phone, and “internet communication”. But, he was as good as his word; it didn’t take long for the gadgets to end up in the pockets of school children around the world. Children in the UK showed that they could quickly get the latest technology from the magic phone and zany apps such as “iBeer” – which turned your phone into a virtual pint – or played music to their peers on Pocket Guitar.
Soon after, most kids with the pocket money, or their willing parents, had ditched their flip phones or “dumb” “bricks” and picked up a smartphone – and the darkest recesses of the internet a few taps away, with extensive use of social. quickly followed by media apps such as Facebook and Instagram. According to an Ofcom report in 2022, 91 per cent of children under the age of 11 now have a smartphone, and 41 per cent have one by the time they are nine.
But while parents have grumbled for years that their children may be spending a little too much time buried in a screen, in recent months the fight back against the phones has gathered momentum and turned into a real crusade against the devices. It comes amid growing concern about the impact of phones on young people’s health, development and education.
This week, it emerged that the Government is considering banning the sale of phones to children under the age of 16. It reflects previous efforts to restrict potentially harmful activities among young people. In 1906, a committee of the House of Lords thought that young smoking should be brought before the Board of Education and recommended that “teachers should be invited to teach the ill effects of this habit in producing growth and disease expressed from time to time”. In 1908 it was forbidden to sell cigarettes to people under 16 years of age.
This restriction came 300 years after King James I noted, in his 1604 treatise “Counterblaste to Tobacco”, that smoking was “injurious to the Brain, dangerous to the lungs and in the black smoke of it, it is almost like with the awful smoke of Stygian an Tochar. a bottomless pit”. So these days legislators are at least acting with more urgency.
The policy now under active consideration is among a range of measures to enable parents to take back control over their children’s technology use, although Westminster sources insist “nothing has been decided”.
‘Reality and addiction’
But the reports have been pounced on by politicians and parents who want to curb the use of smartphones. Miriam Cates, the Conservative MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, said a ban should be “music to Conservative ears” and said “of course regulation is needed to protect children”.
Molly Kingsley, founder of children’s campaign group UsForThem, said on X, formerly known as Twitter: “Smartphones are a dangerous and dangerous product and we generally do not condone the provision of harmful products to children.”
Although politicians lobbied for years to pass the Online Safety Act, which was enacted into law in October, the rules don’t come into full effect until 2025. The current sprawling regulations have been criticized by giants technology and safety activists alike, and there is a demand for. urgent smartphone activism has quickly risen to the political agenda. It is said that under No 10 the Government’s move to explore more curbs on technology giants was.
In the United States, psychologist Professor Jonathan Haidt – who previously campaigned against Cancel Culture – is leading calls to rethink how children use smartphones. Haidt has argued that the mental health of young people has taken a hit since the early 2010s. That decline in happiness, he wrote in The Atlanticat the same time “the years when young people in rich countries were trading in their flip phones for smartphones and moving much more of their social lives online – especially on social media platforms designed to be viral and addictive” .
His remarks fueled a rapidly growing anti-phone movement. Exciting announcements of his new book, The Anxiety Generationfeature 1984-messaging style such as “Safety is Growing. Vigilance is Love”.
Campaigners have more in common with the rise of Big Technology and Big Tobacco. But while it has taken decades to reduce the number of people smoking – by advertising cigarettes, plain packaging and banning them from pubs and restaurants – campaigners are trying to get the upper hand on phones much faster.
I The Atlantic, Haidt says comparisons between the tobacco industry and social media “are not fair to the tobacco industry” – teenagers may choose not to smoke, but they have little choice but smartphones and media use social. He called for an effort to “bring back the phone-based youth” by 2025.
Parents in the US are increasingly taking up arms against Big Tech. Across the US, hundreds of schools and thousands of parents have sued social media companies, alleging that their faulty products harmed children.
These concerns have a larger audience in the UK. After the murder of her daughter, Brianna Ghey, Esther Ghey called for age limits on smartphones and stricter rules on social media.
On WhatsApp, a group of parents called Smartphone Free Childhood attracted 60,000 members and tried to get the community to give children simple “brick” phones instead of a touchscreen device.
Daisy Greenwell, co-founder of the group, says: “It all started from the deep realization I had that children in my eight-year-old’s class were starting to get smartphones. I knew I didn’t want to get her one, but everyone said you have to because everyone else does.”
Arabella Skinner, director of the Safescreens Campaign, a group run by parents who want restrictions on children’s phone use, says: “There needs to be visible health warnings such as smoking on devices along with a public health campaign about too much screen time . and the addictive nature of devices – used by both children and adults around children.”
A ban on sales to children would be a ground-breaking attempt to stop their use, although other countries have tried similar restrictions.
China has been very aggressive in tackling smartphone use among teenagers. The Communist state has proposed that children under the age of eight be banned from using smartphones for more than 40 minutes a day. Under 16s would have a one hour limit and 16 and 17 year olds would have a two hour limit. China already bans most online games from being played overnight with a 10pm curfew.
Many countries have enacted bans on phones in classrooms – or in schools altogether. New Zealand only allows phones at break time, and, in France, under 15s cannot use their phones within school grounds. This year, the Netherlands banned phones, tablets and smart watches in classrooms. In Ireland, some parents have come together for an informal ban on buying phones for children before they reach secondary school.
In March, the UK Government issued guidance to principals that they should ban phones from classrooms and during break time.
For a sales block to work, Arabella Skinner argues that the ban should “at least” include a block on the “sale, supply and marketing of unrestricted phones and applications” to 16-year-olds.
‘This punishes children for Big Tech’s failures’
But there are questions about whether a ban would be effective, or whether it is necessary. A major study by the Oxford Internet Institute, published in November, concluded that there was “no evidence” that screen time was harmful to children’s development. Using MRI scans, the scientists examined 12,000 children between the ages of nine and 12, comparing their screen use with brain development and mental health.
Meanwhile, in review i nature Psychologist Candice Odgers writes in Haidt’s new book: “Age-based restrictions and bans on mobile devices are unlikely to be effective in practice – or worse, could backfire given what we know about the behavior of young people.”
Even some internet safety advocates are wary of claims that children are denied smartphones. Andy Burrows, spokesman for the Molly Rose Foundation, the charity set up in memory of 14-year-old Molly Russell, who was found dead in her bedroom in 2017 after months of browsing dark images and videos on social media, is skeptical. the proposals, saying they are “bad, reactionary” and question whether they are likely to be on this side of a general election.
There are also simple practical questions. Currently, children cannot legally take out a phone contract if they are under 18 and mobile networks should not sell them one.
“This feels like the best way to close a technical gap,” says Burrows. “Ultimately, we feel this is a distraction from where the real focus needs to be, which should be on strengthening the regulatory regime and ensuring that when children go online they can do so on a safe way.” He said that “pulling up the drawbridge may be an easy solution”, but this “really punishes children for the failures of Big Tech”.
Greenwell, of Smartphone Free Childhood, remains convinced. She says: “It is now clear that parents across Wales are demanding change.”
It looks like the race to make smartphones illegal has only just begun.
