Ryan Bridge: Should we just ban kids' cell phones altogether?

Is banning smart phones for kids a dumb idea? 

That would leave them with dumb phones, sans apps and the internet, just texts and phone calls. 

Remember the old Nokia? Or Alcatels? They came in that weird light orangey-peachy colour and a purpley-blue. 

David Seymour's talking about this after a blog post suggesting it'd be easier, and less restrictive for everyone else, if we banned the hardware not the software. 

Make smartphones like cigarettes or beer – if you saw a 12-year-old with one, you'd judge the parents, wouldn't you? 

At present, parents hand them out like candy, caving by osmosis to the their kid's peer pressure to own one.

The social media bans don't seem to work very well —as we've spoken about before— half the Aussie kids get around theirs. 

Where there's a will, there's a way. 

Banning the actual device itself does, on the face of it, make more sense. 

You can still communicate, but not with the entire world. And not with the entire sum of human knowledge —good and bad— at your unsupervised fingertips. 

This way, adults can keep using social media and not have to use some ID or date of birth test to log in. 

Which all sounds great. Except the real problem here is parents themselves. 

They're often the ones on their phones and ignoring their kids in the first place. 

If you were a child, wouldn't you want to be doing whatever your parents are doing too? 

It  doesn't really matter what the law says, and changing it won't change everything, it's ultimately up to adults raising those kids to teach them right from wrong, good from bad, and whether 8 hours a day doom scrolling is a behaviour that's acceptable – for them or their kids. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Is banning smart phones for kids a dumb idea, not
the apps, but the phones themselves. That would leave them
with dumb phones, sands apps, sands internet, just text and
phone calls. Remember the old Nokia or the Alcatels of
the early two thousands. They came in that sort of
weird light orange peachy color. There was a purply bluey

(00:21):
one as well, like you could get too tight, two
colors and one type. David Semol's talking about this. This
is after a blog post suggesting it'd be easier and
less restrictive for everyone else if we just banned the
hardware and not the software. Make smartphones like cigarettes or beer.
If you saw a twelve year old with one, you
would judge their parents, wouldn't you. At present, parents hand

(00:44):
these things out like candy caving by osmosis to their kids.
Pear pressure to own one of the things. The social
media bands don't really seem to be working very well.
As we've spoken about before, half the Aussie kids get
around theirs. Where there's a will, there's always a way.
The actual device itself does, on the face of it,

(01:04):
kind of make more sense. Don't you think you can
still communicate? But not with the entire world, and not
with the entire sum of human knowledge, good and bad,
at your unsupervised child's fingertips. This way, adults can keep
using social media and not have to use some ID
or a date of birth test to log into their Facebook,

(01:24):
which all sounds great, except the real problem here is
parents themselves. They are often the ones who are on
their phones and ignoring their kids in the first place.
If you were a child, wouldn't you want to be
doing whatever your parents were doing too. It doesn't really
matter what the law says, and changing it won't change everything.
It's ultimately up to adults raising those kids to teach

(01:48):
them right from wrong, good from bad, and whether eight
hours a day doom scrolling is a behavior that's acceptable
for them or their kids. For more from early edition
with Ryan's Bridge, listen live to news Talks it'd be
from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.