{"id":13675,"date":"2024-03-12T13:37:19","date_gmt":"2024-03-12T12:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/12\/its-natural-to-freak-out-about-kids-and-mobile-phones-but-a-ban-is-not-the-solution-zoe-williams\/"},"modified":"2024-03-12T13:37:19","modified_gmt":"2024-03-12T12:37:19","slug":"its-natural-to-freak-out-about-kids-and-mobile-phones-but-a-ban-is-not-the-solution-zoe-williams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/12\/its-natural-to-freak-out-about-kids-and-mobile-phones-but-a-ban-is-not-the-solution-zoe-williams\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s natural to freak out about kids and mobile phones. But a ban is not the solution | Zoe Williams"},"content":{"rendered":"

The best way to stop children getting out of their depth? Talk to them \u2013 about everything from trivial beefs to misused emojis<\/p>\n

I got a message from an ex-colleague who used to be fun and is now an agitator preaching \u201calt-right\u201d nostalgia to the gerontocracy. Whatever it was he wanted, I would have told him to stick it, but it just so happened that I really disagreed with it: a cross-party group campaigning to restrict mobile phone use among children.<\/p>\n

As reliably as bad things will happen to kids, people will blame it on phone use. Maybe there is a crisis in their mental health, or someone has been bullied online, or blackmailed over an image they have sent, or they\u2019ve joined a criminal gang or undertaken a murderous enterprise or self-harmed: it is almost inconceivable that, somewhere in the story, a smartphone won\u2019t have played a part. Those affected often wish they had limited phone use, or at the very least, they keenly regret how little they knew what was going on with their child, who was, of course, always on his or her phone. Then politicians and the commentariat get involved, leveraging the grief and trials of others for discursive advantage, preaching measures to schools that they\u2019re often doing already, lecturing parents to return to the \u201cdumb phone\u201d or ban the devices altogether for their kids.<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a>
\nThe best way to stop children getting out of their depth? Talk to them \u2013 about everything from trivial beefs to misused emojis
\nI got a message from an ex-colleague who used to be fun and is now an agitator preaching \u201calt-right\u201d nostalgia to the gerontocracy. Whatever it was he wanted, I would have told him to stick it, but it just so happened that I really disagreed with it: a cross-party group campaigning to restrict mobile phone use among children.
\nAs reliably as bad things will happen to kids, people will blame it on phone use. Maybe there is a crisis in their mental health, or someone has been bullied online, or blackmailed over an image they have sent, or they\u2019ve joined a criminal gang or undertaken a murderous enterprise or self-harmed: it is almost inconceivable that, somewhere in the story, a smartphone won\u2019t have played a part. Those affected often wish they had limited phone use, or at the very least, they keenly regret how little they knew what was going on with their child, who was, of course, always on his or her phone. Then politicians and the commentariat get involved, leveraging the grief and trials of others for discursive advantage, preaching measures to schools that they\u2019re often doing already, lecturing parents to return to the \u201cdumb phone\u201d or ban the devices altogether for their kids. Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The best way to stop children getting out of their depth? Talk to them \u2013 about everything from trivial beefs to misused emojis I got a message from an ex-colleague who used to be fun and is now an agitator preaching \u201calt-right\u201d nostalgia to the gerontocracy. Whatever it was he wanted, I would have told …<\/p>\n

It\u2019s natural to freak out about kids and mobile phones. But a ban is not the solution | Zoe Williams<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13676,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13675"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}