Should smartphones be banned for under-16s?

Polls

29th October 2024

Young people have been saying adults just don’t get it when they say smartphones should be banned for children.

A poll by charity Parentkind, of 2,496 parents of school-aged children in England, showed more than half (58%) believe the next UK government should introduce a ban on smartphones for under-16s.

Meanwhile, headteachers in one UK city this year asked parents not to let their children have a smartphone until they are 14.

In a letter to parents, the 20 head teachers in St Albans said that, while phones can be useful for parents to keep in contact while their children are away from home, phones “do not need to have access to the internet” to keep children safe.

In 2018 the French Government brought in a law banning phones in schools for anyone under the age of 15. But, there are no similar laws about smartphones in the UK – yet.

Nine out of ten young people from the NSPCC’s Online Safety Youth Taskforce think it should stay that way. They voted that under-16s should have access to smartphones.

Should smartphones be banned for under-16s?

13 Comments

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katiebasey · 5 months ago

The phones are expensive and youngsters are clumsy

kb1. · 5 months ago

Some teenagers and children might need to contact their parents if they are walking back from school. Another thing is that a smartphone has a map so teenagers and children could use that to help them get to school. Plus much more homework is getting downloaded online on some websites like google classroom or acrobat. This rule could be changed because smartphones won't do any harm to children and teens. As you can see the government does not know that there can be educational games, homework uploads, school notifications and many more.

This is my opinion on smartphones being banned for under 16s.
Please don't ban it!

laman123 · 5 months ago

Yeah I would luv a smartphone

plinkyone · 5 months ago

Scammers might be looking for a young person to trick

myrealname · 5 months ago

If I couldn't contact my friends during the pandemic that would have been horrible for me

poopyman2 · 5 months ago

No

breezy · 5 months ago

No! Obvs

ethan.ruck · 5 months ago

No

aces10 · 5 months ago

I think if smartphones were banned, young people wouldn’t be so attached to them, and wouldn’t really miss them. So many of my friends are on their phones all the time, and have forgotten how to be social and play games or spend time outside. Banning smartphones would give us a chance to have a proper childhood and develop stronger relationships with others.

fatdogslim · 1 month ago

change to 12. much better

opsm909 · 4 weeks ago

I voted no because they need to contact parents after school but not for instrigran or tiktok

ninshe0 · 4 weeks ago

scammers will trick them and people spend too much time on them and then complain about screen time limits

drumsurf10 · 2 weeks ago

No because you might need to contact your parents. And it also has lots of useful apps like maps, safari and more. Also a lot more school work is being set online.