Phones for under-16s should be banned with “tobacco-like” health warnings on packaging, campaigners say.
Parenting group UsforThem believes smartphones can distract, isolate and depress children through addictive apps.
The campaign seeks government intervention to help children become less digitally dependent.
This is backed up by Katharine Birbalsingh, who has been called Britain’s strictest school leader and claims phones are “breaking their brains”.
UsforThem’s request comes after actress Sophie Winkleman revealed she pulled her children out of school twice because she heard they were being given iPads from the age of six.
Backed by “Britain’s strictest school leader” Katharine Birbalsingh (pictured), who claims phones are “breaking children’s brains”, the campaign is seeking government intervention to help children become less digitally dependent
“Banning smartphones for under-16s is an absolute necessity,” Ms Birbalsingh told The Sun.
Ms Birbalsingh, who resigned as the czarina of the social mobility government because she said she would “do more harm than good”, argued that things like sex, cigarettes, alcohol, driving and some children’s films were already banned.
“Yet we make access to this and worse via smartphones so easy, without parents knowing, not to mention how phones are breaking their brains,” she added.
The UsforThem campaign launched yesterday aims to ban smartphones for children and calls for a tobacco-like regulatory framework for them.
It would require manufacturers, suppliers and phone providers to prove that their products and services are safe for children and ban the sale of those products until proof is provided.
Similar calls for smartphone bans on much younger children have existed for years, and a ban on children under 16 was pushed in 2016 by a former number 10 political leader.
READ MORE: Sophie Winkleman pulls daughters out of £20,000 pre-school once they get home with royal cousins Prince George and Princess Charlotte – after pupils told they’ll have iPads in the classroom
A leading psychologist, dr. Álvaro Bilbao, believes that smartphones slow down a child’s ability to improve their attention span and develop greater control over their own mind.
DR Bilbao believes that screen time for children under the age of six needs to be severely limited to allow them to develop.
He said: “Children who regularly come into contact with mobile phones, tablets or computer screens are more irritable and have lower attention, memory and concentration than those who do not use them.”
Dr. Bilbao, a brain injury expert and psychotherapist, said the risk of mental and behavioral problems such as attention deficit disorder, depression and addiction problems increases when young children spend more time on cell phones and tablets.
He has now written a book called Understanding Your Child’s Brain to help parents decide how to tackle the problem.
The father of three says devices with screens should “grow into the child’s hands” once they are emotionally and intellectually developed.
DR Bilbao said children’s use of smartphones was “like giving an 800cc motorcycle to a child who has just learned to walk”.
Speaking to The Times, former Peep Show actress Ms Winkleman expressed her concerns that devices being given out from a young age are interfering with the way children learn.
She said she “immediately started looking at different schools” when she heard the students were going to be given “pills, everything from first to sixth year”.
Phones for under-16s ‘must be banned’ with ‘tobacco-style health warnings’ on packaging, campaigners say (file photo)
Their children, Maud and Isabella, attended the exclusive £20,000-a-year Thomas’s Battersea with their cousins, Prince George and Princess Charlotte, who have since gone to a co-ed school in Berkshire.
Claudia Winkleman’s half-sister praised the south London facility, which in some cases charges more than £8,000 a term, but said it did not suit her children and worried that the use of online learning in UK schools itself was becoming more normalized become
“The internet is a toxic wilderness that our children stumble through unprotected,” said the actor, concerned about the accessibility of extremist content online.
Winkleman, who is married to Lord Frederick Windsor, son of Prince Michael of Kent, protested against the adoption of digital learning in British schools, which she said was driven by parents.
She said her eldest daughter will be allowed to use a tablet for a limited time on Sunday and she supports a parents’ group campaigning to ban smartphones for under-16s.
In 2016, former Number 10 political leader Steve Hilton called for a ban on smartphones for under-16s.
He wrote for the Daily Mail: “Devices brought entertainment and education, but they also blurred the boundaries between the worlds of children and adults.
“We need to better protect the line between children and technology because unrestricted access to the Internet prematurely exposes children to unhealthy sexual norms and disrupts normal social interactions.”
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Crystal Leahy is an author and health journalist who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a background in health and wellness, Crystal has a passion for helping people live their best lives through healthy habits and lifestyles.
