I believe that screen based, or phone based childhood is no childhood at all. We are in danger of abolishing childhood altogether.
So, I am rather pleased to have had my inbox inundated with hundreds of emails following Kemi Badenoch’s announcement that, if elected, she would follow Australia’s lead by banning under-sixteens from social media. The Prime Minister too, has jumped on the bandwagon, not by making a firm commitment, but by saying that ‘nothing is off the table’ .
Of the hundreds of emails that I have received, one hundred to one are in favour of the proposal.
The principal objection of those few that disagree is that this ought to properly be a matter reserved for parents to decide, and that parental responsibility should not be usurped by the state control. It is a fair point, but my judgement is that it is outweighed by the harm that unrestricted access can have. After all, we do not allow parental discretion to extend to allowing their children to purchase alcohol, go to X-rated movies, or drive the family car.
Children are now spending record amounts of time online, exposed to violence, pornography and extremist content, with experts warning this is contributing to deteriorating mental health, poor sleep, isolation, and knock-on effects for learning and behaviour.
The introduction of a legal ban will help parents to enforce boundaries. One might say that, rather that replacing parental authority, on the contrary, it will assist parents.
The other objection is of a different order: it’s that the proposal doesn’t go far enough because it will exclude WhatsApp and other limited communication tools. I think making this exception is fair. WhatsApp does not use algorithms to feed users with content in the way that so many other applications do. In fact, many families, including my own, use WhatsApp as a means of keeping tabs on their children.