Viewpoint / Mobile phones make you passive and have no place in schools
Alliance to Liberate Scotland candidate Brian Nugent makes the case for mobile phones to be banned from schools
Two school hustings later, a question which seemed to stir up the school pupils at each was about mobile phones and whether they should be allowed in schools or not.
In early April, a jury in New Mexico found against Meta, saying that they were liable in a case involving child safety[i]. The very next day, jurors in Los Angeles found against Meta and Google as being negligent in a personal injury trial. Needless to say, there will be appeals; the Big Tech companies will not tolerate their ability to make obscene profits being reduced in any way, regardless of harm caused.
At least part of the cases against the Big Tech giants is that their algorithms were deliberately made to be addictive, a point I am sure I remember in the early days that they were quite happy to boast about. The cases were brought by aggrieved parents who said that their children suffered because of the addictive nature of the content presented by algorithms on mobile phones.
These two cases will, probably, end up in the US Supreme Court, if at the end of all that the parents win, this will be huge. The algorithms of the content supplied to mobile phones will have to be altered to make them less appealing. This will be a huge turn around for the companies, the parents and the users. I would argue a phone that will be less interesting will be a benefit to the users especially children whether in school or not.
For young children, there are brain development issues all the way to 25, but the first three years are the most important because everything that follows is based on those first three years[ii].
The baby’s brain is in hyperdrive, creating and fine-tuning, at speed, synapses which are the connections between brain cells. Every interaction, every face they see, every sound they hear is shaping their brain architecture.
So, when screens come in at this stage, they are not making eye contact with you, crucial for social development, they are not hearing your voice with all its natural inflections, vital for language, they are not exploring objects with their hands, useful for learning about the world, not moving their body, necessary for motor development.
When screens come in, the child becomes a passive user with no interaction with what is being watched, the brain developments do not happen in the same way. There are suggestions of the number of hours that you could allow your child to watch a screen, with suggestions on how to make these educational experiences, with an adult involved. In these vital first three years, I wonder if this approach does not introduce a danger, how do you prove that these timing guidelines are accurate, and will the adult always be paying attention?
If that does not worry you, then this should. James Marriot argues in his book The New Dark Ages,[iii] that reading is going out of fashion being replaced with ‘slop’ from addictive entertainment technologies, the trivial and meaningless culture of the screen. Marriot argues that reading and writing are essential for innovation, creativity and critical thinking.
Marriot was arguing on Radio 4 that the Flynn effect, where IQ has increased over time, but since the introduction of mobile phones IQ has shown a tendency to slow down or reverse. His overall conclusion was that with a book you have to concentrate, and use your brain, whereas, with a screen you are passive. Too much mobile phone time, particularly, in your youth, leads to a brain that is not used to working, is just used to soaking up ‘slop’.
Another aspect of mobile phones is that users themselves are being used. Big Tech has a lot of information that builds up each time the phone user uses their phone. Big Tech gathers all that information and sells it on to other companies who use it for marketing purposes.
Big Tech is not doing you a favour, you are doing them a favour.
How else does Mark Zuckerberg own a yacht called Launchpad[iv], which “is a masterpiece of luxury and design” it should be, as it is valued today at $400 million dollars. A little bit of that yacht was supplied by each mobile phone user!
My conclusion is that for their own good, school children should go to school, leave the phone at the door, study, pay attention, work hard, stimulate their brain by reading books, progress as an individual. Pick up your phone on your way out. And if you are lucky, and Big Tech loses those cases, they will not be as interesting as they were once were.
Notes:
[i] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/03/meta-google-under-attack-court-cases-bypass-30-year-old-legal-shield.html
[ii] https://wired-parents.com/the-impact-of-smart-phones-on-the-brain-by-age/
[iii] https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-new-dark-ages/james-marriott/9781847929518
[iv] https://www.superyachtfan.com/yacht/launchpad/
