In his post Prisoners of Our Own Device, Kenneth Ho concluded that we have become prisoners of our devices (smartphones). Sadly, he opined not many “prisoners” could ever escape. In his post, he drew our attention to an amused young girl (seated in a shopping cart) and added, “Some start young!”
Janan Ganesh thought smartphones, amongst other things, are by-products of success, and now we are paying a price for it! The debate on smartphone misuse, overuse, and abuse is not new. Interested readers may find reading an opinion piece published by Channel News Asia in 2018 worthwhile.
In a recent report (Straits Times Forum on 4/4/2024), Ng Poh Leng suggested that it is time to look into restricting mobile phone usage amongst youngsters. She cited a poll in the UK, stating that 77% of parents of primary school-going children wanted a smartphone ban for those under 16. She asked, “What should society do to protect children from the harms of premature smartphone ownership? “Do we want our children to be passive consumers of others’ videos, news feeds and advertisements or to be producers or entrepreneurs?”
What are the reasons she cited for the urgency of regulating children’s use of smartphones? She thought, “They (children) need to develop the skills to observe, imagine, think critically, and empathise to create products or services that meet our needs or address social problems.” She inferred that we are making it easy for children to waste precious time on useless activities. Instead, with the advent of artificial intelligence and robotics, they should learn to communicate, collaborate, persuade, and lead.
There is nothing wrong with youngsters using smartphones. These devices won’t go away. Indeed, we will be further locked in (or logged in?) by our devices. Smartphones are now an (external) extension of our brain – a kind of “cannot-do-without” external hard disc drive that will drive our lives. When we were kids, we kept telephone numbers in our heads. Where do we keep them now?
Is this the time for us to take the bull by its horns to address the challenge of defining (and implementing) proper juvenile smartphone usage? Or do we think there is something we should leave to parents? Indeed, there is a case for a whole-of-society approach to address our concern about the detrimental effects of smartphone misuse.
I suggest we establish the facts through well-conducted studies in our local population. All recommendations should be evidence-based and relevant to Singaporean culture, values, and lifestyles.
Vince
Dr Vincent Chong is a retired Professor of Radiology at Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore.
