I can’t be the only neurotic mother to have rejoiced when the Princess of Wales revealed recently that she has a strict ‘no phones at the table’ rule. The Prince of Wales then later let slip that Prince George, who is 12, isn’t allowed a smartphone. When George eventually does get a phone, William added, it will be a brick without the internet – similar, one imagines, to the sort favoured by drug dealers.
Hallelujah! Up until now, the best line for parents to trot out has been the old chestnut that ‘Silicon Valley guys send their children to schools where the tech use is unbelievably moderate because they know how addictive this stuff is’. I’m quoting the great Sophie Winkleman here, aka Lady Frederick Windsor, aka Big Suze from Peep Show, who deserves plenty of credit for being one of the earliest, and most vocal, campaigners against smartphones and ‘smart tech’ – that is, screens in schools.
Social stigma is potentially the most powerful weapon we have against screen time
The Princess of Wales is clearly lending her voice to this campaign. It was a subtle but notable moment of the year, because people really do love to copy HRH’s lifestyle choices: just look at what she did for nude court shoes, wrap dresses and Clarins lip perfector. And who cares what the Silicon Valley weirdos do when it comes to raising their own children anyway? They are the ones who caused this mess in the first place. Far more interesting is what Kate and Sophie choose to do.
Let’s hope the anti-smartphone movement, which now bears the royal warrant, starts to exert its influence even more. The government shouldn’t need to step in to issue bans on phones in schools and social media for children, as they have done in Holland and Australia. We need to pursue radical reform in a far more English way: by pitting snobs against smartphones. That’s how real change tends to happen in this country. Social stigma is potentially the most powerful weapon we have against screen time.
I sense a social revolution is already under way, if the ‘smartphone-free childhood’ WhatsApp groups buzzing on phones all around Britain are anything to go by. Middle-class mummies are seriously freaking out about what phones are doing to their little darlings. Parents with younger children, meanwhile, are taking note of all the anguish on display and promising to do things differently. I heard a father the other day refer to Gen Z as the ‘lost generation’, so addled by their toxic exposure to tech that they seem unable to distinguish between the real world and the online one. The parents of the next generation, Gen Alpha (of which George is a member), think we can do better, naive as we are.
After all, is there anything more dispiriting than the sight of a group of teenagers hunched over their phones, not speaking to one another, their poses reminiscent of the figures in John Singer Sargent’s tragic painting ‘Gassed’? Or a toddler hypnotised by an iPad, which has been neatly strapped to the pram for convenience? Or families on their summer holiday gathering for lunch, only to spend the entire time staring at their screens rather than chatting to each other?
Such scenes provoke strong reactions because it’s hard not to judge. But judgy parents are a powerful force, and given that there is plenty of evidence showing that phones can negatively impact pupils’ educational attainment, it is inevitably going to be the pushiest, most demanding, most annoying parents who will be quickest to scrutinise other parents when it comes to smartphones.
You’ll know when you’re in the company of one of these parents. They’ll ask you not to take photos of their children, please. They might refuse any homework set by the school that involves a screen. ‘We just can’t take that risk with our child’s mental health,’ they’ll say. Jonathan Haidt, the author of The Anxious Generation, is their prophet, Kate and Sophie their new gurus. If they do give their child a phone, it will be a contraption even more useless than anything they had as a teenager. Obviously, they watched Adolescence; obviously, they believe ADHD is somehow linked to screen time. They hate KPop Demon Hunters, the cult tweenie film, because the characters are constantly trying to engage with their fans via their phones. They are already looking forward to Toy Story 5 appearing in cinemas next summer because the villain is a device called LilyPad. I speak as one of this tribe. Pretty awful, aren’t we?
Deluded, too, of course. Technology evolves and who knows what is just around the corner. Jony Ive, the British man who helped design the iPhone, is now involved with OpenAI and is reported to be building a new device ‘designed to integrate more seamlessly into daily life’, which will be as compact as an iPod shuffle. It will move us ‘beyond screens’ and supposedly offer a natural, always-on interaction with AI. ‘I don’t think we have an easy relationship with our technology at the moment,’ Ive said. He wants his AI device to ‘make us happy’, which sounds ominous.
So that’s what Generation Alpha will face: a wearable device which slots into their youthful lives and means they never have to learn anything. Until, that is, their smartphone-free-but-sanctimony-full parents tell them to take it off, pick up a bloody pen, and focus on how to read and write – or else risk descending into the swollen ranks of the screen-addicted classes. Perish the thought.
For now, I remain hopeful that whatever comes next will at least take into consideration all the damage that has been done over the past 20 years by screens. Whether or not that comes to pass, what is certainly true is that the backlash has begun. And if Prince George isn’t getting an iPhone for Christmas, plenty of other children certainly won’t be either.
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