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/

I don't think that would be practical as impossible to enforce. Also, I think that children under 16 would usually have access to the internet via a computer. Should we ban those as well?

How about just banning porn from the internet instead?

Parental guidance blocks can be circumvented easily, despite the shite Apple and the others claim.

Ban porn from the net? Same thing. Even if it were possible, the porn industry would insist their material is 18+, claim discriminatory behaviour and take it to every court in the world.

I think heavy supervision and talking to children about it is better than a ban.
I remember 10 years ago when my sister discovered her 10 year old had been getting up in the night, going downstairs and watching babestation when his same-aged cousin stayed over. The little buggers would find a way to get up to no good even if they were banned.

I think we should think of this as the new industrial revolution. We threw up factories in the middle of towns and killed thousands of people through pollution and dangerous practices. Gradually we introduced regulation to put industry back in its place.

I think one day 13 year olds on social media will be seen in the same light as children in factories.

YANBU to not want your own child(ren) to have smart phones.

YABU to want the government to ban them for everyone's children.

For anyone who doesn’t think phone muggings happen...
www.express.co.uk/news/uk/921337/mugger-shocking-footage-12-year-old-girl-thug-brave-theft-robbery-brutal

Another day another call for a nanny state

Why don't you just do what you want and let other people do the same?

Mine won't be having them but that doesn't make it my business what anybody else does

Yanbu to choose no smartphones for under 16s.

I would welcome the law in France which bans kids from bringing smartphones to school.

I would still buy them smartphones way before 16. My kids got smartphones for secondary and it's a good age to teach them how to be safe online. No 16 year old will accept mum and dad following them, handing phone over for checking in the same way that an 11 year old would.

I think you are naive to think that cyber bullies wouldn't simply switch to bullying in real life. Kids would be accessing Instagram or whatever from a PC so will still get DMs

We should ban rock n roll too. And video nasties. And comic books.

ಠ_ಠ.

You would have to ban the internet to under 16's full stop. Many have access to tablets and laptops at home. Many parents allow their kids free access that's not supervised.

Education is the step. Educate parents on how to set up routers to block certain sites. Educate parents on how to set restrictions on individual devices. Educate children about safe use.

I have my network set so no porn can come through for the dc's. I regularly check to ensure sites are still blocked. I did the same with the phones and contacted the mobile provider to block porn. Again I check regularly to ensure nothing gets through.

I would rather have something in place that holds parents accountable. I used to run e-safety events across London for free. I would go into schools, community events etc to talk about it and how to block. I would do a lot of outside schools and office hours to get to more people. The take up was dire. And the result was that the kids know more about tech than some hapless parents.

I think you are naive to think that cyber bullies wouldn't simply switch to bullying in real life.

Real life physical and emotional bullying has soared year on year in the past decade, directly attributable to social media.

We should ban rock n roll too

Don't give my DP ideas, she hates most of the music I listen to already!

I have my network set so no porn can come through for the dc's. I regularly check to ensure sites are still blocked. I did the same with the phones and contacted the mobile provider to block porn. Again I check regularly to ensure nothing gets through.

Hah. I guarantee you, and I'd be happy to prove it with a donation to charity, that can be circumvented in under a minute by a 12 year old. Would take me 15 seconds.

I would rather have something in place that holds parents accountable.

Many parents bury their heads in the sand. The internet cannot be restricted. Visited content masked/filtered from logs. It's way past that stage. Do you think Mr. Russell is accountable for his daughter Molly committing suicide?

Yes and no. It was only after her death that the family looked at what she was looking at. If they had taken an interest before then they could have talked to her about it.

Of course, it's devasting to lose someone in this way. But taking her phone away wouldn't have stopped her accessing SM as she could have still gone through a laptop unsupervised.

If you provide access to your child then it's down to you to know what they are looking at. To talk about what they are seeing. Burying your head in the sand and hoping that they are looking at nice things isn't the right way to go. You have to accept that you as the parent have to remain responsible.

My older ones where online when there wasn't as much info about e-safety and how to stop them from running up money on apps etc. But it was still my responsibility to look into it, to monitor their usage and to talk with them regularly. A lot of parents don't. They buy tech and give it to their kids in the still sealed boxes and let them set everything up themselves.

When I was doing e-safety. I never forget one question - why does my internet stop working after a certain time but I walk past my kids room and they are still playing online. Turns out she had let them set up with the network.

The whole point of giving my DS a phone was so that he could contact me in an emergency and he could check if the bus was running on the app (bus frequently has the route cut short so no bus turning up). So not being allowed it at school is pointless and actually unsafe. Large schools don't have the ability for students to check their phones in - it's just not possible to manage.

DS's account is part of mine - so I can see the apps he downloads, I can see what he searches in Google and all of his browsing history. He also knows that he has no privacy on his phone and that I can (and do) go into his phone and check things randomly.

Bwatch - is that so?

TheHodgeoftheHedge
For anyone who doesn’t think phone muggings happen...
www.express.co.uk/news/uk/921337/mugger-shocking-footage-12-year-old-girl-thug-brave-theft-robbery-brutal

Was that for me? As I posted:
I can't actually remember when I last heard of someone getting mugged for their phone, does it still happen?

If so, thanks for the link, but can I just point out that I was asking if they still happen because I haven't heard of one for ages. I didn't say that I didn't think they happen.

Banning stuff wouldn't work.
It would drive everything underground and more secrecy which would lead to far greater issues.

Rather than banning we need more stringent controls and also parents and caters to be supervising their child's use of social media.

Too many parents hand over phones and tablets, and allow unsupervised social media access.

Forget the rubbish about teens needing privacy on these sites. Make it a home rule. You want access, fine but insist on passwords, phone checks etc.

DD's secondary and how her new sixth form both have allowed smart phone use in school. It truly hasn't been an issue. They do a lot of work especially lower down school about appropriate use and they have stringent sanctions for misuse which is used as required, no excuses.

Technology (and even social media) don't have to be the devil. They can be really beneficial when used appropriately. Smart phones can be a fabulous tool.

I would agree with this motion yes.

YABU. Go and live in North Korea if you want every aspect of our lives regulated, monitored and proscribed by law

I honestly think it would help if parents would get off their phones to and then kids might not spend as much time on them.

I currently have a smart phone but once it dies I'm getting a basic ring people text people phone like my husband and hope to stop my daughters having smart phones until they are 13/14

I completely agree with you, OP, and am shocked how quickly everyone has bought into this, smartphones and the explosion of the online world, adults too! It has completely changed how people socialise and connect with each other now, how they spend time, their attention spans, it has normalised extreme behaviour, extreme 'beauty' trends, it dictates people's lifestyle and spending habits.

I don't have a smartphone, and never will. And my daughters won't while they depend financially on me.

To me, looking from outside, smart phones feel like a huge con that really diminish quality of life and happiness.

We can attempt to preside over what our children do online, but ffs, every major browser has "privacy tabs" so it's all stacked up against parents wishing to regulate what their children can access.

I know I keep banging on but the net cannot be regulated. Content cannot be successfully banned, even by government/ISPs (exception being the SM companies who don't give a shit), and it's easier than ever to obfuscate ones activity.

Sorry, personally invested, I'm just upset that something highlighted two decades ago wasn't heeded and we are now in today's world and things will continue to escalate.

Wow there’s some astonishing naivety on this thread and some weird analogies too. Banning rock and roll? What the actual fuck has that got to do with anything?

And the tired old cliche about the nanny state - yer, let’s leave it to parents cos that’s working out well isn’t it?

I was bullied hideously at school in the 80s but when I walked through my front door I was safe. That’s no longer the case for kids nowadays.

The damage social media can do is devastating and real. We’re ignoring it at our peril.