Time for change.
Lulu Luckock
Social and Emotional Learning advisor, speaker, and trainer in primary schools | Contributor and author for Think Equal | Counsellor | School Governor | South London Listens-Be Well Champion
Finally, something is being said and done to raise awareness of the harmful impact smartphones have on our children's and families' lives.
Smartphones are addictive, and we know now that they can harm mental health, that they can cause anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbances.
They have the potential to expose children to harmful content, creating arguments, and disharmony, and reducing attention spans as they go.
"?97% of 12-year-olds in Britain have a smartphone. When children started getting them, there was no research about their impact. Now there is, and it’s overwhelming. Smartphones expose children to harmful content, raise the likelihood of developing a mental illness and are highly addictive." @smartphonefreechildhoods
From my perspective, as a family counsellor I regret that I haven’t used my voice before now to share my professional experience regarding the negative impact smartphones and online social media screen activities have on our children and subsequently on their families.
In my role as a counsellor, 8 out of 10 of the problem/problems that come to family meetings have phone and screen usage at the root of the difficulties the families are experiencing. ?
To a large extent, parents had been blissfully ignorant and unaware of the addictive nature and potential harm a smartphone can do.
From a young age, children are put under huge amounts of peer pressure to have a smartphone and to be connected using online apps and social media. As a result, many parents have capitulated without wanting to, and children are given smartphones when they are too young and ill-prepared.
With little or no rules, guidance, or restrictions children have been given free rein to navigate a dangerous world where the impact of what some of them have seen can’t be unseen and will have a lifelong negative impact.
Many young people I see struggle with anxiety often caused by the various apps that expose them to an overwhelming amount of unrestricted information, too early, too soon, too sexy, and too much.
If you don't 'fit in' the online world can be incredibly unkind, nasty, mean and unnecessary.
Aside from anxiety some of the young people I see show addictive behaviours like those you would see with people who have a substance addiction.
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Manipulation, cohesive control, deceitful tactics to get what they want, lack of respect for adults and authority, bad language, and a ‘sophisticated’ terminology that’s way above their age range.
Here are five concrete reasons that smartphones and social media negatively affect youth mental health. @gozenlove
?Ciations Haidt, J. (2023) The Anxious Generation. Penguin Random House.
Twenge, J.M., Martin, G.N.,& Campbell, W.K. (2017). Decreases in psychological well-being among American adolescents after 2021 and links to screen time during the rise of smartphone technology. Emotion, 19 (6), 765-780
We should all agree that childhood is too short to be spent on a smartphone and that none of us want to grow up in a beige society where nobody dares to be different or fail for fear of being judged at every online corner.
?“I find myself worrying most that when we hand our children phones we steal their boredom from them. As a result, we are raising a generation of writers who will never start writing, artists who will never start doodling, chefs who will never make a mess of the kitchen, athletes who will never kick a ball against a wall, musicians who will never pick up their aunt’s guitar and start strumming."?Glennon Doyle. Untamed.
So, what can you do?
Let's put a stop to overprotecting our children in the real world and underprotecting them online. We have everything to gain and nothing to lose.
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