Experts: Phone bans alone don't give kids healthy tech relationship

Experts call for a rights-based approach to technology use, where children are better protected from harm by age-appropriate design and education while using technology to develop skills to help them participate in the modern, digital world. — AFP

LONDON: Banning smartphone and social media access alone fails to equip children for the healthy use of technology in the future, a group of international experts has argued.

Writing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), the collection of academics argued there is a lack of evidence that blanket bans helped children and such approaches were "stop-gap solutions" that "do little to support children's longer-term healthy engagement with digital spaces across school, home, and other contexts, and their successful transition into adolescence and adulthood in a technology-filled world."