Should Pre-Teens Have Smartphones – I Think Not
I was not surprised to read today that Ofsted’s Chief Inspector was ‘surprised’ when primary school children had smartphones.
I find it extremely worrying that parents believe that children under 11 should have a need for a smart phone.
I was walking Oscar only a couple of days ago, when a young lad walking to school had his head down talking into a smartphone.
At the time I thought that can’t be right but didn’t think more of it at the time.
In hindsight and having read the article it does concern me that we live in an era when children now have the unsupervised potential ability to reach the extremes of the Internet and parents believe a smartphone is a necessity for their young children
The article clearly identified the dangers that are posed by the extreme nature of the content and the views that are held by unreasonable people. Young children are clearly also more prone to being manipulated by these extremists.
Now the Internet is one of the great inventions. While writing for Issy my memoires I noted that the invention of the Internet and Mobile Phones were on my list of Major World Events and also as Greatest Changes in my lifetime, however I also put them down in my better or worse category as noted below:-
Mobile phones and internet are wonderful things allowing you to have greater knowledge and instant answers, but I am not sure that the benefits out way the downsides. People seem to be constantly looking at their phones rather than enjoying life, they would rather be recording what is happening rather than enjoying the moment.
Should Smartphones be banned in Schools, well in my opinion the answer is Yes. I would also ban them from all schools.
Clearly the ability to potentially brain wash young children must be stopped, but more importantly the youth of today should learn to just innocently enjoy the wonders of life around them at such a young age.
There is plenty of time and life ahead of them to take on board the option to embrace the wonders and accessibility of the Internet, but that is not for today but for tomorrow.
I wonder just how we used to manage……..
