The network provider EE made the news by telling parents of primary school children not to buy smartphones for their kids. At first glance it seems strange for a company to be telling potential customers to not buy their products. The full advice from EE also suggested that it would be better to buy them a non-smart device, a brick phone as they are called, that can only make calls, send texts and probably play Snake.
I’m sure your local EE outlet will furnish you with a burner phone although I’m not sure your kids need the same kind of phone that people smuggle into prison to commit crimes on.
There is a strong chance that this act of apparent commercial self-sabotage is exactly the opposite. If you’re in the business of selling something that people are starting to consider harmful to children, you might want to make it clear that you’re not in favour of letting the young ones get their hands on your kit.
There isn’t loads of data proving the harmful effects of phone use. Some research has found a link between screen time and disrupted sleep, which is quite serious for school children. Messed up sleep can impact the next day’s learning.
Some studies found a link between social media use and the mental health in teenage girls. I didn’t have access to Instagram when I was at school and I also wasn’t a teenage girl, but just the thought of having to deal with the mean girls at school who can use those apps to reach beyond the playground is terrifying. If I’m honest, I still cross the street to avoid a bunch of teenagers in case they pick on my trainers.
Even without lots of studies it feels like smartphones are too much for children. You must have seen it, if you’re out for a meal and the family on the table next to you put a phone in front of a toddler to sedate it. It works. They can tap on a phone for hours but that doesn’t feel natural. You’re secretly hoping the kid has found the right links to tap on to buy hundreds of pounds worth of games credits.
It is possible to bring up a child without giving them a phone because that’s how we were raised. I spent most of my childhood begging my parents to put a landline phone in my bedroom. Not a separate line, just a cable that let another phone be plugged in. I never got it but that’s for the best as I turn out as a painfully introverted type who hates speaking on the phone anyway, so it would have been a waste.
I managed to navigate childhood without having an array of apps in my pocket.
I have enjoyed the fact that maths teachers used to say, “You have to learn this. You won’t always have a calculator in your pocket,” and these days we do. But don’t buy your child a smartphone or a brick phone. Just buy a basic calculator. It’s safer and you can still have hours of entertainment typing 58008 on it. That is also the number of times I checked my phone.
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