Smartphones and Social Media: Children Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Science, Innovation & Technology
Lia Nici
Main Page: Lia Nici (Conservative - Great Grimsby)Department Debates - View all Lia Nici's debates with the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology
Smartphones and Social Media: Children
Lia Nici Excerpts(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)
Thank you, Sir George; I will be quick. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) for securing this very sad, but very important debate. It is good to have the Minister in his place, but we need action from the Department for Education. There is no excuse for headteachers and governors not to implement mobile phone bans in every school, nursery school—we know we have problems there—and college if necessary, because we need to halt this now.
Being a parent—having a child and a family—is a precious thing. During the last four years, when I have been travelling by train to come here and back, I have sadly seen only two families who have not plugged their toddlers or children into mobile phones or devices because they just want them to be quiet. In fact, most of those families are not only doing that, but isolating their children by putting headphones on them. Those children are not interacting with their parents, they are not looking at the countryside, and they are not learning about the world around them.
We need action to be taken quickly. As we have heard, the Online Safety Act will do lots of things, but it took this place five years to get it moving. We need some short, sharp Bills. We also need the Department for Education to crack on and tell schools that these dangerous devices should not be allowed in schools.
We need help for parents. It is difficult, but the word is parent, not friend—a parent is there to parent their children. We need not only our tech giants to get on with it, but our broadcasters, such as the BBC and ITV, and internet providers to get a grip. Everybody now needs to work together because this is a vital issue.