This is like the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument. Sure, smartphones are just a tool. But they're a tool used to access social media. Also, I'd argue it's not just social media causing this issue. AI filters that make you look more "beautiful" are commonplace now. Children see themselves through these filter and it may impact their self-esteem, e.g. "why do I look beautiful in the photo but not in real life"
The world is not going to set on fire if kids under 16 can't have smart phones. Every generation before now grew up and lived without them. My parents grew up without them. At 16 you are significantly more mentally capable than a 12 year old at dealing with pressure, or a stranger who thinks you are pretty. Your impulse control is also stronger, which helps prevent a vicious addiction cycle.
Where does a laptop with an LTE radio fit in?
"No child under 16 years of age shall possess any device with a screen smaller than 7", or any device with a screen under 11" which contains a LTE radio, unless the device's screen is no larger than 3" (edit:) and has a physical numeric keyboard without alphabetic characters."
There you go. Devices smaller than 7" (all smartphones) are banned. 7"-11" devices are permitted if there is no LTE radio (school tablets). Dumb phones almost always have screens 3" or less in size and are permitted, while anything to do with social media would be almost unusable at that size, let alone bashing out letter-by-letter on the solely numeric number pad.
And as for why smartphones specifically, smartphones are much, much harder to control impulsively. The average American checks their phone 96 times per day, and unlocks it over 150 times per day. How many times does the average American have trouble unlocking their laptop constantly per day? Laptop usage is far more deliberate and intentional than smartphone usage.
Much easier and far, far more enforceable to say "under 16 + smartphone = seize and fine."
C'mon. Guns are dumb. Smartphones are smart. It's entirely possible to set up a smartphone in a way that blocks access to certain apps, limits how many hours you can use an app in a day, etc etc.
The only way your parallel works is if guns had the ability to selectively target bad guys.
I’m a pretty sophisticated technology and mobile user. I’ve built out MDM and MAM solutions for significant deployments of smartphones - setting up limits on individual phones is complex, time consuming, and unreliable. The median user can probably implement a time limit on iOS, but I’d guess 40% of them don’t do it correctly the first time.
A gun is easy to secure. You either don’t have one, lock it, or lock the ammo and gun separately. Physical controls prevent accidental discharge and are easily understood by reasonably intelligent people.
The gun argument is a bad comparison because the rational people who use guns as a tool get drowned out in the noise of paranoids and people selling gun swag.
Sure, smartphones aren't the problem _in themselves_. But blocking apps is also not the solution.
Maybe a philosophical divergence though:
> Sure, smartphones aren't the problem _in themselves_.
It is time we start to accept that some technologies are vile, and yes, they are a problem _in themselves_.
The modernist mind (ie. the human mind as it exists today) cannot accept this because it seems like a fetishistic argument. Consider the evil monkey paw, that thing itself is evil. A modernist will refuse to accept such a reality. We have conditioned ourselves and each other that each inanimate thing is just an inert tool, applied in good or bad judgement. In a materialistic sense this is true. It is also completely trivial. Taking a step back, and surveying the totality of the environment, how some technologies just seem to be misapplied consistently, how some technologies leave a wake of destruction, how some technologies seem to cast an evil spell on everybody in its orbit.
This is the reality in which we find ourselves. The only way out is true. Smashing the idol is the only way to ban the evil spirit.
Source: was a kid not that long ago.
She doesn’t like being embarrassed that she’s not on social media, so she fakes it to fit in.
Her Grandma didn’t smoke, but all her friends did. So she kept a pack in her purse for years, never touched it. But had to fit in.
