Smartphones for kids were a faustian bargain

tech.hindustantimes.com:

It would be difficult to pinpoint the moment the smartphone took control of my life. Like Japanese knotweed, it grew surreptitiously in my mental garden, gradually throttling other forms of attention until it had insinuated itself into almost every activity. I check my screen time rarely, but I remember a sense of vague discomfort a few years ago on seeing that it had passed a daily average of six hours. Recently, it stood at more than 11.

Two decades ago, it seemed unimaginable that we might carry with us a handheld device that could be simultaneously: a phone; TV; radio; music player; shop; newspaper; book; map; wallet; bank; game console; admission ticket; calculator and translator. Among many other things, too numerous to list. I have used my phone as a tape measure, to identify plants and to prove my identity to the government. It was inevitable that access to such power and convenience would exact a price. Increasingly, it appears the most unanticipated and unacceptable has been our children's mental health.

It took the murder of a high school student in northwest England for me to admit to myself that I have a problem. The case, which saw the teenage killers of transgender 16-year-old Brianna Ghey jailed this month, has acted as the trigger for a national debate over children's use of technology. The victim's addiction to social media made her a vulnerable target, while one of the fellow students who stabbed her testified to having viewed torture and murder videos on the dark web via mobile phone. Ghey's mother is campaigning for under-16s to be barred from accessing social media apps. The UK government, responding to public pressure, issued new guidelines this week on preventing mobile-phone use in schools.  

This rare and grisly event has helped draw attention to the far more commonplace and pervasive damage that smartphones, and particularly social media apps, do to the psychological and emotional well-being of young people. There is a burgeoning academic