

UK child psychotherapist believes smartphones harm youngsters - Pamar
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/children/11486167/Are-smartphones-making-our-children-mentally-ill.html

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jdietrich
Claims of this sort have been made about every communications technology in
history. The postal service allows young women to communicate with unsuitable
men un-chaperoned. The transistor radio is bringing a tide of filth into the
bedrooms of young people. Video games cause violence and impair social skills.
In every case, those claims were accompanied by plenty of tragic anecdotes but
little evidence; In every case, they were eventually found to be largely
baseless.

Without any evidence, it seems perfectly reasonable to categorise this claim
with the others. If this psychotherapist has concerns, then the appropriate
place to raise them is in a scientific journal, not a national newspaper.
Doing so is the only way to constructively address the issue, by providing
other mental health practitioners with useful case studies and making a case
for a systematic investigation. I have found no such publication, but I have
found other articles making the same claim in the same newspaper, dating back
over two years:

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/9637676/The-i...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/9637676/The-
internet-can-be-a-dark-and-dangerous-place.html)
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/children/10234854/Han...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/children/10234854/Hannah-
Smith-has-shown-us-the-dangers-online.html)

~~~
Pamar
In general I tend to agree with your points, but we have also to take in
account that the "time to market" of technology (in terms of adoption by a
large percentage of the population) has decreased dramatically. So to take one
of your examples: when radio was introduced, I doubt that 80% of teenagers got
their own personal set before they had left home to go to college (or start
working).

This meant that parents had some more time to get acquainted with the
technology, and either decide it was not dangerous, or they could ban it if
they thought it was really devil-spawned.

So while the complaints are probably similar, the actual scenario is different
and would merit some consideration. I don't have offspring myself, but in my
circle of friends this is something they have to worry about, and they are far
from being luddites.

------
iamds
The introduction of the smartphone has changed children for the worse. The
children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they
show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are
now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when
elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company,
gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their
teachers.

~~~
lucozade
I don't understand modern children. They're all Greek to me.

------
pjc50
Summary: a smartphone means you're always connected. This leaves some
teenagers vulnerable to always-on bullying, especially girls.

It's hard to argue that this isn't a problem given the bullying directed at
some adult women on the internet. It's also hard to know what to do about it;
unilaterally _not_ allowing your child to have a smartphone when it's the
means of communication among their friends guarantees social exclusion.

