Let’s teach teens how to use smartphones responsibly | Letters
In the article (As a child psychiatrist, I see what smartphones are doing to children’s mental health – and it’s terrifying, January 3), Dr. Emily Sehmer, a British-based psychiatrist, expressed her concerns about the harmful effects of smartphone use on children . She hopes to keep her children away from such devices and social media until they are 16. She suggests other parents do the same.
Her “protective” approach can be counterproductive. Some children might buy alternative devices and use social media secretly. After all, the forbidden is often more attractive. Furthermore, a 16-year-old can still be woefully unprepared to navigate online spaces responsibly.
Instead of blanket restrictions, we should focus on tackling the root causes of children’s poor mental health. There are also lessons to be learned in responsible smartphone use and social media literacy. Parents can have open, ongoing conversations with their children about harmful online content and help them filter it.
Shawna Kay Williams-Pinnock
Old Port, Jamaica
Surely there must be a way to enable young people to own a device with the convenience and accessibility of a smartphone, but with safety features that also protect them. It cannot be difficult to design an application that allows one device to be fully controlled by another device, which can be controlled by parents.
The phone under control may have features that support a child’s safety (such as a location finder) and limited access to parent-chosen features and websites. As a child grows older, accessibility can be increased at a safe and deliberate pace.
Stuart Harrington
Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset
As a teacher and teen life coach who works closely with youth, I affirm the validity of Emily Sehmer’s points. But while concerns about the effects of technology on young people continue, there is no mention of a major factor driving kids to their phones: the lack of attractive alternatives.
In recent decades, highly engaging books and interactive instruction that drew children into book storylines filled a need for stimulating entertainment. The result is that children read for pleasure. In today’s English classes, students read context-free excerpts from old, “important” books before answering dry multiple-choice questions. There is no involvement, no joy. As a result, few children today learn to enjoy reading. Their phones, as dangerous as they are, offer an easy alternative.
When I, as a teacher, provided additional reading support to disadvantaged students in the early 2000s, students chose books that matched their interests; I read to my middle schoolers as if they were toddlers. Children learned the tension, the escape, in books of their choice. This note from a student illustrates the results: “I hated, hated, hated reading. Now I get in trouble when I read in class.”
Surprisingly, many of the teens I coach are trying to break away from their phones. We can help them do that, and thereby alleviate their smartphone-driven struggles with anxiety, fomo, and comparison-based low self-esteem, by re-emphasizing stimulating, interactive, student-centered reading instruction in schools.
Cyndy Etler
Huntersville, North Carolina, USA