From September, Year 9 boys attending Eton College, a prestigious private school in the UK, will face a ban on their smart phones. Eton College has instead opted to provide all year 9 pupils with Nokia or ‘Brick’ phones that they can use to make any necessary calls or texts during the day. What are my thoughts on this ban…

Honestly, I think it’s brilliant. It’s about time adults started to notice and take responsibility of the detrimental effects smart phone use has on children. Our prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain associated with good decision making, does not fully develop until we are around 25 years old. This is why it is always an adult’s responsibility to make the best possible choices for our children, regardless of whether they think it’s “super unfair” or not. It is our role to protect them and make sure they flourish into healthy and well integrated members of society. Excessive smart phone use, I would argue, is holding our kids back.

1. Unlimited Access/ Options

   Our brains are not designed to take in immeasurable amounts of information. I can access information from all over the world, search up anybody’s opinion and peer into anyones life. Humans are social creatures, we thrive in our communities and once upon a time, we only knew about the happenings of those communities. Now a child with a smart phone can literally see everything, everywhere, anytime. There is a lot of good but an awful lot of bad and naturally kids get curious about the bad stuff. With young brains like sponges, absorbing information, it really is detrimental to give children unlimited access to the internet via smart phones as they may stumble across, political videos, war, pornography and all sorts. With the internet also comes unlimited options. If you put me in a store and tell me to pick a chocolate bar out of 100 choices. I will be stuck there for a while and will likely overthink my options. I will likely feel unhappy with my eventual choice as something else I saw may have been better. Put me in the same scenario and give me the choice of 4 chocolate bars. My choosing becomes quicker, I have less to compare my option to and am therefore consequently more at peace with my choice. The Internet is an entire world of choice and it's just too much especially for children.

2. Unleashing Discontent

   Continuing from above, having access to unlimited content inevitably leads to discontent as one begins to compare and contrast their own lives with what they see online. Happiness producing values such as gratitude and acceptance decline, making way for children to feel discontent with their life. There’s a reason why mental health problems and anxiety in kids is at record highs and I would place a nice bet that access to social media plays a major role in that. Social Media teaches kids to base their worth on the validation of others. “How many likes did I get on this post?”… “She looks so pretty, her nose is so small”… “He has the life I want”. Low self-confidence, narcissistic thought patterns and discontentment with life flourish on these platforms. When unchecked, these traits make our children vulnerable to mental health issues.

3. The Bullied and The Bullies

   Social media allows children to mask behind a sense of anonymity. Bullies have free rein to send hateful messages and children that are bullied feel targeted constantly. There is so much access to people through phones and the lack of face to face contact makes it far easier for bullies to 1. get away with what they are saying and 2. Feel empowered to say horrible things in the first place.

4. Loosing Connection

   When I look up whilst sat on the London Tube, I see adults all sat staring down at their phones. I am often one of them until I snap myself out of it and realise that every other adult in the carriage is doing the exact same thing. Then a child walks in, no phone in hand but looking around observing all the adults sat with their eyes directed at their screens. What sort of things are our kids learning from us? When we give them their phones suddenly we’re upset that they spend all the time with their eyes glued on it, when it’s adults who have modelled this obsessive behaviour! People in general are loosing touch with our inbuilt natural need for socialisation within a community. Raising kids to be individualistic and without community, makes way for children to find their own online ones. The problem with children attempting to find their own community is that they don’t always have the good decision making skills to decipher a beneficial community from a negative one. This is how radicalisation, grooming or getting mixed up with the wrong type of crowds occur. As adults, we should connect to the real world and bring children into beneficial communities. This might be religious based, hobby based, culture based whatever!

   At the end of the day, the smart phone ban is only for in school. School is a place where children should learn. Not just the basic knowledge of subjects but also how life works, how to socialise and how to fit in. Children should be socialising face to face. They should be focussing fully in their lessons. They should have rules to follow and discipline in place. I don’t think it’s a cruel move, I rather think that adults are finally paying attention to what kids need as opposed to what kids want. They can have smart phone time at home and they can have a brick phone during school time to make emergency calls and texts if needed. To me Eton’s phone ban is fair. If you have any other opinions or experiences you want to share, pop it in the comment section below!

Written by Nanny Emmy.

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