Calls for 'smartphone free' childhood grow in UK

Yes! I got my first cellphone in my late 30’s and survived!

They can have one when they can pay for it themselves.

He advocates no smartphones before the age of 14 or social media before 16.

Crucially, he says, parents must act together to prevent them caving in when a child "breaks our heart" by telling us they are excluded from their peer group by being the only one without a phone.

Nice sentiment but unrealistic

Didn’t bother to get a mobile until I was in my 50’s, had a works phone before that but never had much need for it and couldn’t get a signal where I live anyway.

If there is evidence of quantifiable damage then they should be banned from having them and the companies supplying them held responsible for preventing. Parents have a responsibility as well.

Smart Move, Kids are much better off without these damn phones, they are healthier, much more talkative, and will spend more time with family and friends.

16 years old or even 18 could be even be better, now watch how smart Phone makers and providers will try to destroy this movement, interesting to watch what comes next.

I didn't get a smartphone until my second childhood.

The post in February triggered a tidal wave of reaction from parents similarly gripped by anxiety about providing their children with a device they fear will open them up to predators, online bullying, social pressure and harmful content.

Parents in the UK need to worry more about in-person predators given all the immigrants they are accepting.

Smartphones can lead to addiction, distraction, and even affect mental health. They expose children to inappropriate content and potential online dangers. Moreover, excessive screen time can hinder social interaction and physical activity. Instead, encourage outdoor play, face-to-face communication, and engaging activities that stimulate creativity and learning

The UK is full of people too scared to let their kids walk home. My parents place is near the schools I went to and is now double parked with parents' cars picking them up. Few kids walk home. Everyone did in the 1970s and 1980s.

If you're picking kids up, then it makes sense to have a way to contact them. The best way though is a "kids keitai" with basic features like call parents, GPS, and a panic button. Little kids shouldn't have full featured smartphones. They are too addictive.

People have a tendency to only consider the upside of bans. There is always a downside too.

This will go some way to erasing tech skills and abilities in the UK, but as the country is broken and declining, its economy failing, it doesn't really matter.

Putting a tracker on your kid's smartphone is the only way to know where they are. Parents are now so fearful of abduction, that I'm not sure they would be comfortable waving their kids off to school in the morning and knowing nothing of their location until they get home in the late afternoon, as it was when I was a kid.

Most feature phones have some basic app functionality now, so they would have to ban them from having those too. That means they wouldn't be able to call for help if they needed to.

This would give kids much more freedom. We got up to all sorts that kids can't nowadays, as they would be tracked by their parents or filmed by their peers. They would also be more vulnerable, as they would no longer have the equivalent of a bodycam with them. That must scare off a lot of perverts who might otherwise approach them.

The simplest solution is for parents to monitor the apps on their kids' phones and social media.

I don't believe they have to be absolutely free of smartphones but the devices should become unusable at bed time and there ABSOLUTELY should be no devices in school that aren't part of the instruction.

My teen does not have a phone, and though my teen child continues to ask for one using these words "all my friends have one" and my response is "if your friends jump off a bridge would you follow"

I told my teen child when you have a job, and you can afford to buy your own phone and foot the bill for the monthly fees is when you can have one. Since my teen child is not working it will be a while before a phone will exist in their hands and I have no issue with that at all. For all the other parents who feel pressured and go and buy the phone they are not teaching their kids how to stand up for their beliefs because they cannot do it themselves.

It is my guess next year my teen will try and get a job and that is the year when I will be dealing with the phone issue and all that goes with it.

Except good luck contacting your wee ones. Then what about going shopping, paying for things, traveling, or doing any other multitude of things these days --even for 10 year olds. No phone, no life; almost literally now. By design. And it sucks.

Both of my Gen Z offspring received their first smartphone when they were independently capable of financing it.

Basically, they had to earn it. Even though they were paying for it, I retained control and could take it away at my discretion. Total tyranny. And I exercised my authority often and with a vengeance.

They are grown up a bit now and free from my oppression. They both turned out just fine.

We are very seriously considering not giving smart phones to our young children, or at perhaps only give phones that can text and call us. They just seem too harmful to young people's developement.

toraToday  01:53 am JST

Except good luck contacting your wee ones. Then what about going shopping, paying for things, traveling, or doing any other multitude of things these days --even for 10 year olds. No phone, no life; almost literally now. By design. And it sucks.

I think it's mainly aps like Tik Tok, Snapchat, Facebook and Line etc. that are the problem not the phones themselves.

I admire them for trying, and I wish them well. But, I feel like the Genie is already well and truly out of the bottle on this one, and let's be perfectly frank here, it's not just kids. Kids are being told 'put the devices down' by parents with a smartphone in their hand. I'm typing out a message on a computer at 6.42am in the morning.

The world is different and we are controlled by our devices. On a bus or a train, people are almost exclusively on phones. Walking on the street, people are on phones.

How do you expect the kids to be phone free when no-one else is?

Closing the gate after the horse has bolted.

I am 24 and never owned a smart phone and never will. Adults are the main culprits in leading children astray, just look around you when you go out shopping or where ever, almost every adult is looking down at their phone and not paying attention to what is going on around them, and you can bet they are doing the the same when at home and virtually ignoring the kids, is it any surprise that those same kids want the same devices. The internet has a become a scourge on the worlds's society and it will get worse.

I hate the thought of my kids wasting precious time scrolling through tiktok, but if I'm honest, I'm not much better.

There should definitely be a recommended age related to when it's appropriate for young children to start using devices.

The problem is that it's good for the economy, and we all know that in the West if something is good for the economy then everything else takes a back seat..

I am 24 and never owned a smart phone and never will. 

Ophelia@I'm with you all the way. I have absolutely no use for the infernal things and am appalled to see the damage they are wreaking on humankind.

The smartphone and the iPad are two essential devices for my business and contact with my family in other countries.

Perfectly reasonable but at the same time bring in AI technology rendering anyone who goes that way obsolete.

I remember asking my daughter to not use " Line" 10 years ago when it started.

Now a phone call is deemed rude