Not a word about the loss of space for play & hanging out, the widespread closure & defunding of youth clubs and wider social infrastructures (libraries, council gyms, etc), the hostility (from cars, adults, policing, disinvestment) and/or commercialisation of public space for teens, etc. etc. etc. - ThreadSky

alisonstenning.bsky.social • 77 days ago

Not a word about the loss of space for play & hanging out, the widespread closure & defunding of youth clubs and wider social infrastructures (libraries, council gyms, etc), the hostility (from cars, adults, policing, disinvestment) and/or commercialisation of public space for teens, etc. etc. etc.

Reposted from The Guardian

If you’ve got children, you need to watch Swiped – and see how sick their phones are making them | Simon Jenkins

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alisonstenning.bsky.social•77 days ago

This thread is useful:

https://bsky.app/profile/alisonstenning.bsky.social/post/3l57bakm7n22x

activetraveltt.bsky.social•77 days ago

Very useful! Thanks for sharing. 🫶

danwhitehead.net•77 days ago

Also zero mention of a global pandemic which interrupted an entire generation's lives and took a year of real world social interaction from them right when they needed it most. That might have had mental health impacts, I reckon...

alisonstenning.bsky.social•77 days ago

Indeed!

dionlisle.bsky.social•76 days ago

I lived in a nice community in San Diego, North County and we had brand new schools, so I would take my kids over to play ball. But every school's fields were behind fences and locked gates.

We paid Melo Roos taxes for the schools but couldn't access them.

alisonstenning.bsky.social•76 days ago

In the UK, it's extremely rare for the community to be able to access school fields and playgrounds. It would certainly open up a lot of community space for play and hanging out. The Dutch and the Danish do this very well.

creativestar.bsky.social•53 days ago

Many school grounds in my part of Scotland are open access. This is particularly interesting as they are not included in our Scottish Outdoor Access Code but council recognises social value. Some PPP schools are not open but locked away.

cyklistbloggen.se•77 days ago

Is the research mentioned available somewhere to read? It is mentioned on the university homepage, but cant seem to find the text itself:

https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2024/research/school-smartphone-ban-channel-4/

cyklistbloggen.se•77 days ago

Found some of the conlusions here:
https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2024/research/school-smartphone-ban-better-sleep/

But it mainly focused on sleep. Eg total ban of smartphones to have pupils go to bed an hour earlier.

But not much when it comes to cogn:

cyklistbloggen.se•77 days ago

"Interestingly, the research didn’t show significant improvements in cognitive ability; the phone ban group showed a modest 3% boost in working memory, and there were no improvements in sustained attention"

cargobikeben.bsky.social•77 days ago

Exactly. It feels like social media is the new video games, in terms of being scapegoated. Never do we consider why children are stuck indoors socialising online instead of being outside. Because if we did, we’d have to accept it’s our fault for turning over our streets to cars, not social media.

alisonstenning.bsky.social•77 days ago

And austerity!

cargobikeben.bsky.social•77 days ago

One other thing to consider about this latest in a long line of 'moral panics'. Like video games before them, social media 'steals' attention away from the same traditional media that is pushing this narrative; a group that has a financial interest in it as they keep losing advertising eyeballs.

cargobikeben.bsky.social•77 days ago

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that social media doesn't have its issues. It absolutely does. However, it's very much a megaphone on many issues we have in our own society, rather than being the root cause of them.

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