The smartphone experiment on our kids has gone too far, writes Tom Swarbrick

My eldest is right at the age where some of his mates are starting to get phones. He’s been told very firmly that it won’t happen until he’s at least 14. Needless to say, he’s not impressed.

We’ve already got iPads and a PlayStation in the house. Even with limits on how long they’re used and what can be accessed, the phone feels like an entirely different beast – a whole new world of pain. As a parent, it can feel like you’re single-handedly trying to hold back the tide against the nonsense flooding into their lives. You want to preserve what innocence they’ve got left, to protect childhood before it disappears altogether.

The stories we’ve heard during LBC’s Online Safety Day – and those I’ve heard among friends – make clear this isn’t paranoia. The horror stories are real. Which leaves the question: what do we do about it?

I don’t think the answer can be left to individual parents anymore. It has to be collective. That’s what I hope our Online Safety Day achieves: galvanising that shared spirit and shaping it into something meaningful. Yes, the Online Safety Bill is an important step. But it could be clearer. If the law set a minimum age for owning a smartphone, that would be a start. We already accept legal limits on alcohol, cigarettes and driving. Why not phones?

Other countries are starting to take this seriously. In Australia, they’re looking at banning fully internet-enabled social media for under-16s. That seems to me the right direction. I’d like my son to have Google Maps so he can find his way around, and to message me and his mum. That kind of freedom is fine. But why should that mean unfettered access to Snapchat, TikTok or Instagram?

The truth is we’re conducting a giant experiment on our children. We don’t yet know the full cost. My teacher friends already say attention spans in class have collapsed because social media is designed to capture your focus in bursts of 12 seconds. We are chemically conditioning a generation to struggle with concentration. Why are we doing this?

Education has to play a role. Kids need to understand that social media is addictive – not in an abstract sense, but in the same way nicotine or alcohol is. It gives you a dopamine hit, and the danger is you can’t stop chasing it. The challenge is explaining that without frightening them, making sure they feel empowered to handle it.

And we need to think carefully about how children transition into the digital world. Why hand a child a fully enabled device that gives them everything, instantly? Why not take graduated steps into adulthood? At 16, you can vote; at 18, you can drink – why shouldn’t phones be phased in the same way?

Parents can’t fight this battle alone. If we don’t act collectively, we risk looking back in 20 years and wondering how we let this happen.

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