Steve Jobs promised a revolution when he took the stage in San Francisco to introduce the first iPhone in 2007. The crowd at the Macworld Conference and Expo inevitably went wild when he brought the iPod, phone, and “internet communicator” together. But he kept his word; It didn’t take long for these gadgets to find their way into the pockets of school children around the world. Children in the UK who could afford the latest technology were quick to show off their magic phones and crazy apps like “iBeer” that turns your phone into a virtual pint glass, or play music for their peers on a Pocket Guitar.
Soon, most kids with pocket money or willing parents abandoned their “dumb” flip phones or “brick” and bought a smartphone; the darkest corners of the internet were just a few taps away and social networks were widely used. Media applications such as Facebook and Instagram are quickly following. According to a report by Ofcom in 2022, 91 percent of children own a smartphone by the age of 11, while 41 percent own a smartphone by the age of nine.
While parents have been complaining for years that their children spend too much time in front of screens, in recent months the fight against phones has gained momentum and turned into a real crusade against devices. It comes at a time of growing fears about the impact of phones on young people’s health, development and education.
This week it was revealed that the Government is considering banning the sale of phones to children under 16. This echoes previous efforts to curb potentially harmful activities among young people. In 1906 a committee of the House of Lords considered that youthful smoking should be brought before the Board of Education and suggested that “teachers should be invited from time to time to point out the ill effects of this habit in stunting growth and producing disease.” In 1908, the sale of cigarettes to those under 16 years of age was banned.
This restriction came 300 years after King James I observed in his 1604 “Bombshell Against Tobacco” that smoking was “harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and its black, fetid smoke least resembling the dreadful Stigian smoke.” bottomless pit”. So lawmakers are at least acting with greater haste these days.
The policy, which is currently under active consideration, is among a range of measures that would enable parents to take back control over their children’s technology use, but Westminster sources insist “nothing has been decided”.
‘Virality and addiction’
But politicians and parents who want to limit smartphone use jumped on these reports. Miriam Cates, the Conservative MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, said the ban should “sound good to the Tories” and added “of course regulation is needed to protect children”.
Molly Kingsley, founder of children’s campaign group UsForThem, said on X, formerly known as Twitter: “Smartphones are a dangerous and evil product and we generally do not tolerate the provision of harmful products to children.”
While politicians hesitated for years to pass the Online Safety Act, which became law in October, the rules won’t come into full force until 2025. Existing, expanding regulations have been criticized by both tech giants and security activists, and there have been calls for new regulations. Urgent action against smartphones quickly rose to the top of the political agenda. The government’s move to impose further restrictions on tech giants is said to be driven by No10.
In the US, psychologist Prof Jonathan Haidt, who previously campaigned against Cancel Culture, has led calls to rethink how children use smartphones. Haidt argued that young people’s mental health has been deteriorating since the early 2010s. He wrote of this decline in happiness: Atlantic OceanIt coincided with “the years when teenagers in rich countries replaced their flip phones with smartphones and moved much of their social lives online, particularly on social media platforms designed for virality and addiction.”
His statements stirred up a rapidly growing movement against phones. Provocative ads for his new book, Anxious Generationfeature 1984Messages like “Security is Growth”. Surveillance is Love”.
Campaigners are increasingly likening the rise of Big Tech to Big Tobacco. But while it has taken decades to reduce the number of people smoking through advertising cuts, plain packaging and bans from bars and restaurants, activists are trying to turn the tables on the phone much more quickly.
Inside Atlantic OceanHaidt adds that comparisons between the tobacco industry and social media are “not fair to the tobacco industry: Teens may choose not to smoke, but they have almost no choice but to use smartphones and social media.” He called for an effort to “take back phone-based childhood” by 2025.
Parents in the US are increasingly taking up arms against Big Tech. Hundreds of schools and thousands of parents across the US have filed lawsuits against social media companies, claiming their faulty products harm children.
These horrors have a growing audience in the UK. Following the murder of her daughter Brianna Ghey, Esther Ghey called for an age limit on smartphones and stricter rules for social media.
On WhatsApp, a group of parents called Smartphone-Free Childhood has attracted 60,000 members and grown into a grassroots effort to give kids simple “brick” phones rather than a touch-screen device.
“This all started with a deep sense of unease that kids in my eight-year-old’s class were starting to buy smartphones,” says group co-founder Daisy Greenwell. “I knew I didn’t want to buy him one, but everyone said you should because everyone else does.”
Arabella Skinner, director of the parent-led Safe Screens Campaign, which calls for restrictions on children’s phone use, says: “There needs to be clear tobacco-style health warnings on devices, along with a public health campaign against excessive screen time and the addictive nature of the devices – both.” For use by both children and adults around children.”
A ban on sales to children would mean a new attempt to stop the use of these products, although other countries have tried similar restrictions.
China has been the most aggressive country in combating youth smartphone use. The communist state has proposed that children under eight be prevented from using smartphones for more than 40 minutes a day. There will be a one-hour limit for under-16s and a two-hour limit for 16- and 17-year-olds. China already bans most online games from being played at night, imposing a 10pm curfew.
Many countries have outright banned the use of phones in classrooms or schools. While New Zealand allows phones only during break times, in France, children under the age of 15 cannot use their phones within school grounds. This year the Netherlands also followed the ban of phones, tablets and smartwatches in classrooms. Some parents in Ireland have banded together to unofficially ban buying phones for their children before they reach secondary school.
In March, the UK Government issued guidance to school principals urging them to ban phone use in classrooms and during breaks.
Arabella Skinner argues that for a sales block to work, the ban must include a block for “the sale, supply and marketing of unlimited phones and apps” for “at least” up to 16.
‘This is punishing kids for Big Tech’s failures’
But there are questions about whether the ban will be effective or even necessary. A major study from the Oxford Internet Institute, published in November, found there was “no evidence” that screen time is harmful to children’s development. Using MRI scans, scientists studied 12,000 children ages 9 to 12 and compared their screen use with brain development and mental health.
Meanwhile, in a review Nature “Age-based restrictions and bans on mobile devices are unlikely to be effective in practice—worse, they could backfire, given what we know about teenage behavior,” psychologist Candice Odgers writes of Haidt’s new book.
Even some internet safety advocates are wary of demands to prevent smartphones from being given to children. Andy Burrows, a spokesman for the Molly Rose Foundation, a charity founded in memory of 14-year-old Molly Russell, who was found dead in her bedroom in 2017 after months of scrolling through dark images and videos on social media, is skeptical. He describes the proposals as “bad, reactionary” and questions whether there is any chance of him coming this side of a general election.
There are also simple practice questions. Currently, if children are under 18, they cannot legally get a phone contract, and mobile networks should not sell them contracts.
“This feels like it’s closing a technical gap at best,” says Burrows. “Ultimately we think this is a distraction from where the real focus should be, which is strengthening the regulatory regime and ensuring that when children go online they can do so safely.” He said that “removing the suspension bridge might be an easy solution” but that it “frankly punishes kids for the failures of Big Tech.”
But Smartphone-Free Childhood’s Greenwell remains determined. “It is now clear that parents across Britain are demanding change,” says He.
It looks like the race to make smartphones illegal is just beginning.