Technopathology and the rise of the ‘dumbphone’ – going against the grain when it comes to smart phones for kids.

By Dr Suzy Scarlett

21st Sep, 2024

Are you, like me, a little bit addicted to your smart phone? Do you kid yourself you have control but then override the time limit you have set yourself, just look at one more post, before reemerging back into the real world a little later after a period of ‘doom scrolling’ only to feel the shame washing over you, again. And this despite my efforts to delete apps, turn off notifications, keep it on silent, ban them from both dinner table and bedroom, and try to store it away from living areas.

Not a week goes by these days without another news article about the harms of social media use¹, the rise in anxiety, depression and self-harm (for some convincing graphs on this, see Jonathan Haidt’s book “The Anxious Generation”²). I was equally alarmed as I thumbed the pages of Johann Hari’s book “Stolen Focus”³, detailing the decline in our ability to focus over recent decades. And if you still need convincing the Netflix documentary “Social Dilemma”⁴ explores themes such as technology addiction, fake news, social media impact on mental health, and everything you didn’t want to know about algorithmically enabled forms of behaviour modification and psychological manipulation.

So, am I going to open the floodgates and allow my children the same temptation? There are arguably many benefits, all the information you could ever want in the palm of your hand, and I’m assured that parental controls can be put in place. Alarmingly 1 in 5 toddlers now owns a smart phone and by the age of 11 it is estimated that this rises to 96%⁵. Somehow, we held off, despite my son fully expecting a smart phone for his 11th birthday, almost as a rite of passage. But the more I learned about emerging harms the more I feel not only do I have to make some difficult decisions for my own family, but need to help create and support a culture shift in our school, hoping the ripple effect will hit the wider community. There will of course be exceptions, notably diabetes technology reliant on mobile phones. I’m not completely against technology in the classroom, but at least iPads are cumbersome, reliant on Wi-Fi___33, and harder to use in secret.

There are pockets of parents in this together already, and when my son eventually turned up at senior school with a simple brick phone, he was one of several children whose parents had come to the same conclusion, and this is being replicated up and down the country. There are plenty of similar communities out there already such as ‘smartphone free childhood’⁶ and ‘phone free schools movement’⁷. Perhaps

Worldwide, change is coming. The US surgeon general issued an advisory on this ‘public health emergency’ in 2022⁸. Both Florida and South Australia have issued a statewide ban on mobile phones and smart watches during school time⁹, and the Cyberspace Administration for China has incrementally tightened access to social media and set strict time limits for children¹⁰ (40 mins <8 years, 1 hour for 8-16 and 2 hours for 16-18 year olds). Closer to home the UK government published guidance in February on prohibiting the use of mobile phones in schools¹¹ , and notably a leading public school banned smart phones and issued their students with ‘bricks’. At the end of August telephone giant EE advised that children under 11 should not be given access to smart phones¹².

In lifestyle medicine we focus on the 6 pillars of health; in my view ‘technopathology’ should fit under ‘avoiding harmful substances’. But it also has huge effects on sleep, social connection, and my favourite pillar of all, physical activity¹³. Phone usage is sedentary activity and can result in all sorts of musculoskeletal complaints (‘techneck’ included – how’s your posture reading this?!). If you’ve chanced upon The Movement Prescription Podcast¹⁴ you’ll know that my absolute passion is getting people moving, even just a little bit.

The information on the pros and no inconsiderable cons that smart phones and social media are doing to children (and adults) is already there, and some we may be yet to see. We are increasingly aware that this ‘tool’ has become a time-consuming attention seeking device, so it is time to respond. Whilst our children need to grow up learning to live with technology and use it to their advantage, I’d like to support at scale efforts to move away from a phone-based existence, to promote the delaying of smart phone ownership until well into their teens and shift our family, school and community cultures towards an unplugged, active and connected lifestyle – doing the simple things well.

What’s the antidote? No single thing, but we adults have to be responsible role models. And encouraging a play-based childhood – rather than cooping our children up in the safety of our homes with the temptation of various devices as default, perhaps we need to relearn how to give them freedom to explore and learn in the great outdoors.

As with many things in life balance is important, yet so hard to achieve. And as always much of what I’ve said is common sense, but are we doing it?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

About the Author

Suzy Scarlett is a GP in Edinburgh and an active member of the BSLM community. She is passionate about promoting the lifestyle medicine message to patients and colleagues alike, and one of the hosts of The Movement Prescription Podcast.

Technopathology and the rise of the ‘dumbphone’ – going against the grain when it comes to smart phones for kids.

About the Author

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