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A decade on, I still wonder if I was wrong to give my daughters a smartphone
New research links young people’s worsening mental health to the age they received their first phone
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Teenage mental health has worsened sharply in the past decade, the period after smartphones went mainstream.
PHOTO: UNSPLASH
Gillian Tett
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I still think about the dilemma I faced as a parent over whether to give my kids smartphones, even though a decade has passed since.
When they were in junior school, my daughters craved these magical devices. They claimed they would become social outcasts without phones because “everyone else has them”. Even other adults seemed to be on their side. Some parents insisted that phones were a “safety” device, enabling kids in trouble to call for help. The tipping point came when a lawyer I know noted that it was good for children like mine, whose parents had separated, to have a phone to stay in contact with the parent who wasn’t around. Eventually, I put aside my scruples and caved in.
