In the article (As a child psychiatrist, I see what smartphones are doing to kids’ mental health – and it’s terrifying, 3 January), Dr Emily Sehmer, a UK-based psychiatrist, expressed concerns about the deleterious effects of smartphone use on children. She hopes to keep her children away from such devices and social media until they are 16 years old. She suggests other parents do the same.
Her “sheltering” approach may be counterproductive. Some children could source alternative devices and secretly engage with social media. After all, the forbidden is often more enticing. Moreover, a 16-year-old may still be woefully unprepared to navigate online spaces responsibly.
Instead of blanket restrictions, we should focus on addressing the root causes of poor mental health among children. Lessons in responsible smartphone use and social media literacy should also be taught. Parents can have open, ongoing conversations with their children about harmful online content and help them filter. Shawna Kay Williams-PinnockOld Harbour, Jamaica
• Surely there must be a way of allowing young people to possess a device with the convenience and accessibility of a smartphone, but with safety features that will also protect them. It cannot be difficult to design an application that allows one device to be brought under the full control of another, which could be operated by parents.
The phone that is under control could have features that would support a child’s security (such as a location finder) and limited access to features and websites chosen by parents. As a child matures, accessibility could be widened at a safe and considered rate.Stuart HarringtonBurnham-on-Sea, Somerset
• As a teacher and teen life coach who works closely with youth, I confirm the validity of Emily Sehmer’s points. Yet as concern for technology’s effects on youth rages on, there’s no mention of a major factor driving kids to their phones: the lack of appealing alternatives.
In decades past, highly engaging books, and interactive instruction that ushered kids into books’ storylines, met a need for stimulating entertainment. As a result, kids read for pleasure. In today’s English classes, students read contextless excerpts from old, “important” books before answering dry multiple choice questions. There is no engagement, no joy. Because of this, few kids today learn to enjoy reading. Their phones, perilous as they are, offer an easy substitute.
When I was a teacher offering extra reading support to disadvantaged students in the early 2000s, students chose books that matched their interests; I read aloud to my high-schoolers as if they were kindergarteners. Kids learned the thrill, the escape, in books of their own choosing. This note from a student illustrates the results: “I used to hate, hate, hate reading. Now I get in trouble for reading in class.”
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Surprisingly, many of the teens I coach seek to disengage from their phones. We can help them do so, thereby alleviating their smartphone-driven struggles with anxiety, fomo and comparison-based low self-esteem, by reintroducing an emphasis on stimulating, interactive, student-centred reading instruction in schools.Cyndy Etler Huntersville, North Carolina, US
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