Said it before, but to reiterate:
"Ban social media for under 16s"
"internet-free phones for children"
These ideas may have worked 20 years ago, but that horse bolted so long ago, it's galloped around the planet and is now approaching the stable from the opposite direction
/1
Fact is, a vast chunk of the modern childhood experience now involves the internet, being online, and phones. Whether you feel that's good or bad isn't the issue, but trying to remove that, via a heavy-handed top-down approach... that's not going to end well.
/2
How's it going to work? One option, they take phones and apps away from kids under 16 once the new law is on the books, meaning millions of tech-savvy teens suddenly have their social life/interests massively disrupted.
Yeah, I'm sure they'll just accept that without a fuss
/3
Alternatively, it's staggered, so only kids without a smartphone etc. when the law's in place are affected by it. So, they have to watch all their slightly-older peers enjoy something they can't have.
Again, I'm sure they'll accept that with maturity and grace
[cough]
/4
I mean, it's not like we don't have countless existing examples of what happens when you impose age limits on teens. Like, you officially can't drink alcohol or see sexual material if you're under-18, so obviously, no younger teen has ever done those things
[Sarcastic face]
/5
Again, I'm not saying that's a good thing. But anyone who has ever encountered a teen of any age should know that, if you don't want them doing something, telling them "I've decided you can't do that, and you have no say in the matter" is the *worst* possible strategy
/6
Laws which prevent under-16s from accessing smartphones & social media, the most likely outcome isn't "Healthy, compliant teens who go outside more", but "Teens with smartphones and social media, but also experience of, and comfort with, circumventing laws"
Marvellous
/7
Gramophones are killing our children
...
Radio is killing our children
...
TV is killing our children
...
Heavy Metal is killing our children
...
Home Computers are killing our children
...
The Internet is killing our children
...
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
19 years ago I was an IT Support Officer in an FE college library. The shared PCs were constantly in use for Bebo. Against my advice, the powers that be wanted to ban it and arranged for it to be blocked. It took students less than 2 hours to get around the block. Scale that nationwide.
I remember at some point you could bypass my uni blocking software by opening the page in Google translate.
There were loads of dodgy (block bypassing) sites even back then.
I used to work at British Gas and the IT department kept telling us that we couldn’t get the internet on our PCs.
One time I was being told that with the BBC News homepage clearly visible behind me.
About the same time at school they banned stuff, you literal had to go to alta vista, search babel fish get the ip and boom back on stick death dot com
The digital skills of people tasked with teaching IT were so far behind mine when I was 13, 14 - whilst the "digital native" remains a waste of everyone's brainspace, so too is the idea that you can ban anything from anyone young and interested in it.
Who wants to bet the better age verification is also going to include rules that will require people to include documentation of state-issued ID, which will prevent trans people from creating social media accounts that reflect their actual gender?
The real reason why Miriam Cates (Tory MP) & her ilk want to ban social media / internet for young people is that they want ALL of their political opinions to be moulded by [ever-increasingly conservative] mainstream media. The younger, internet-savvy generations are MUCH better informed & critical.
Cates is an extremist bigot even by the standards of the current Tory party. She wants to stop young people from eg encountering supportive queer communities or information on safe sex and abortion
You say that, but my daughter had only a ln old-school Nokia phone, no smart phone, until she turned 14. She complained about it occasionally, but now she says she's glad she wasn't sucked into all the drama with most of the other kids.
That's pretty much how all parents I know (tbf it is a small sample) did it or are doing it—smartphones but with tight controls (limited apps and time) are another option I hear about
We let her have one at 14, but yes, with limited use time, and on the agreement that she commit to other activities, which are currently weekly tennis, swimming, and theatre classes. Very middle class, I know!
"develop a new phone, more suitable for children, without apps/internet"
Okay, just spitballing here, but what EXACTLY do these kids DO with this new phone?
Like I can see adding restrictions and screen time limits, but what is the use case for a phone without any apps or Internet?
Totally agree. Our kids have had gradual exposure to the Internet, Social Media etc through their childhood and they seem well adjusted and reasonably savvy. Banning them til age X is as stupid as not letting them have a small glass of wine with dinner.
During Covid it was an important way my students kept in touch and helped each other out. We had ‘online form time’ and those attending would see who wasn’t there and message them for me. I didn’t have their mobile numbers! Got more students reminded about lessons, work that way.
