To want "smart" phones banned for under 16's..

[Godknows22]

With yet another deeply distressing news story about the literally deadly effects that the internet is having on our children.. Why are we allowing the most precious people in our lives access to the internet via smart phones on a constant basis when they are clearly not ready for it. The internet is not ready for our children with all it's harmful content and our teens/children are too young to handle the online world that smart phones expose them to. Can't we take back control? Please protect your child and others by buying your child a standard mobile phone not a smart phone. They will still have a phone to make calls and text without all the stress and danger of a smart phone. If we all joined together and so no to smart phones imagine the difference; no more being ignored while they are glued to the screen, dealing with phone addiction, arguments about thier phones, no more watsapp groups, no more cyber bullying (imagine that)!, no harmful social media at thier fingertips, less likely to be robbed for their expensive "smart" phone.. The list goes on.. Smart phones are literally a danger to our children, why are we doing this to them? It is up to us to ensure our children grow up in a healthy environment. Why are we giving them constant access at thier fingertips to an extremely unhealthy enviroment? Why are we doing that to the people we love the most? Please be smart and don't give your child a smart phone. Here is a link to the best non smart phones on the market: theinformr.co.uk/cell-phones/p/best-basic-phone-10094/

Agree 100%.

I agree, they don’t need smartphones, just a basic phone which texts and makes calls.

That said my DS has my old phone but he is autistic and can operate a smartphone but a non smartphone is beyond him as it means pressing too many buttons. He rarely uses it except to ring me when he is distressed.

Yes I said this 10 years ago. I think it is a sinister addition to a child's life. If porn can be so easily accessed why are children allowed this technology. I cannot understand it. It is harmful to women and children and created by men.

Great idea.
Then when they are 16 we can just thrust them upon them an masse and see what happens.

Or we could all teach our children how to use them appropriately, like we do with anything else.

I have three kids, all under 16. The oldest two have smartphones. We are in control, we look at what they're doing on their phones.

Banning stuff is just saying "I want someone else to take responsibility for what my child might be doing".

I'm with Galactic Chicken.on this one. Teaching responsible use, supervising use and being more tech savvy as a parent is a imo a better way forward.
I get annoyed at parents who don't check their children's phone regularly as they are entitled to privacy. Teaching our children that you never text/type/photo anything you would be embarrassed/ashamed of your parents reading/seeing is the way forward.
Technology is advancing, smart phones are mainstream.

Agree that a regular Nokia is fine.
I think adults cannot manage smart phones well yet so kids for kids it is a nightmare.

They said this about novels too a century or so ago.

It’s fine if you have an educated involved parents but many kids don’t and that is where he problem starts. You cannot teach parenting.

It’s fine if you have an educated involved parents but many kids don’t and that is where he problem starts. You cannot teach parenting.

You can't ban everything that might be miss used by a child because some parents are crap. There would be nothing left.

How would you implement it? Fining/imprisoning people who give their children a smartphone? It’s just not practical.

Education is a much better solution, but at both the parental and child ends of the equation.

I think you win a Canute Award.

Also, you completely overlook how tech savvy the digital natives are. Parents cannot really circumscribe what DC do online from mid-teen years onwards. The message should not be about depriving secondary age DC of an ordinary phone. But about educating primary aged DC.

Agree. Disappointed that at DD’s school they don’t restrict smartphones to lunchtime either.

I don’t think social media is suitable for under 16s and whilst I know it’s impossible to police I think something should be done. I know 9 year olds with Instagram, doing duck lips, 11 year old girls doing sexy poses in a bra. It’s the parents to blame but it’s utterly grim.

I think it would be possible to ban smart phones in school. Just a Nokia payg would suffice.

I agree with @GalacticChickenShit. A blanken ban on all technology would be ridiculous, we need to teach kids how to use it appropriately.

I wouldnt support an outright ban (what would you do to people who broke it for a start?). Am amazed that some schools allow them to be used in school time though, flat out ban at ours thank God.

It’s the parents to blame but it’s utterly grim.

No. It's the freedom of a globally distributed connected world. You cannot, in any way, ban content on the internet. Even mandated legislative site bans pushed through government to directly ban access (as happened in the last couple of years with torrent sites) is a joke. A 12 year old could circumvent in under a minute.

I raised my concerns about the early development of the internet over 20 years ago when I was working in the industry. My white paper detailed several forms of content that would run unchecked and attract millions of hits a week (now its more like millions per day), and now its too late. Look at Molly Russell and the joke lines being spouted.

The only people who can control this is the extremely powerful companies that control social media, and they like their profits too much.

What has since driven the explosion of misogyny, racism, homophobia and hate crime is the ease for like minded people to communicate. You can include rapists et al in there also. And ISIS. Kids who like Candy Crush can find others playing the game simply and quickly. No problem. Kids who self-harm can find others doing the same.

Trying to make changes to the fundamental structures of the 'net at this stage is like a drop of rain falling into the Atlantic.

If children under 16 were not allowed to have social media accounts l think this would go a long way to sorting things.

I don’t agree with banning smartphones as we live in a digital age. But the current age 13 for social media is ridiculous. The age of consent is 16, but it’s ok to have access to self harm and suicide media. How is that right?

@LadyBunker There are ten year olds clustering together to talk about ways to violently penetrate girls. I wish I was joking.

I'm with Galactic Chicken. I'm happy for my 12 year old to have a smart phone and she knows that we keep a close eye on her.
When she got a message from a stranger she came straight to us to alert us (and it turned out not to be a stranger, just a grandparent with a new phone number), and she only has a few group chats with small groups of friends. I don't think progress can be stopped, so it's better to manage it.

Regarding age-appropriate content, if you can't join under 13 then fab, but do you want a 13 year old in suicide cliques? Molly Russell was 14. A former associate of mine in the US, director at a much respected company, mooted introducing a "Smart ID" system, where government issued photo ID and the registrants' face would be captured and analysed. It was shot down. Again though, this does not solve the problem of distributed content.

I think it's too late to turn back time and all we go do now is educate our children on how to use technology wisely.

I have 2 teenage boys and fingers crossed we have had no problems so far. They use their phones for playing games, chatting to friends on Instagram and shopping. They put them away when asked, I've seen no sign of porn or bullying and they've both got second hand phones with cracked screens so I doubt they'll get mugged for them (I can't actually remember when I last heard of someone getting mugged for their phone, does it still happen?).

LadyBunker - but surely you would have put the appropriate parental guidance blocks on his own tablet so that he wasn't able to access it