A third of parents admit that they don't have clue what their kids are looking at as others reveal their children get violent if devices are taken away
A QUARTER of kids have smartphones before they are seven – with some as young as TWO using them, a Sun study has revealed.
Most parents told us they knew exactly what their children were looking at on the handsets yet a third admitted they had no idea what was being viewed.
Many mums and dads confessed their children had developed such an intense addiction to smartphones that they would become VIOLENT if devices were taken from them.
Experts warned the trend could seriously damage kids’ health and see them struggle with key life skills.
The Sun today calls on parents to Get Smart On Phones, by encouraging more playtime than screen time.
Our research, which questioned parents of kids aged up to 18 and was carried out by consumer insights company Toluna, found 60 per cent were worried about the impact of smartphones.
Most allowed access to handsets for safety or to aid learning — but parents also told how their children’s ability to hold a conversation, manage schoolwork, spell, read and even speak properly had been “negatively impacted” by the devices.
Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield urged parents to “take responsibility” and called on social media companies to block use of their apps for under-13s.
Around a fifth of parents said their kids’ moods had been adversely affected by smartphone use.
Nearly half of children kept their phones in their rooms at night, despite a quarter of parents reporting negative effects on their kids’ sleep.
Asked how their kids reacted if their phones were taken away, nearly 40 per cent of the 1,000 parents we asked said theirs would become “moody”, while ten per cent would “lash out”.
Most smartphone activity was watching videos.
Just over half of kids used Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram for staying in touch with friends, and a fifth used handsets to make new friends on social media.
Ms Longfield warned more needed to be done to stop a generation of kids growing up with an unhealthy addiction to technology, exposing them to “significant emotional risks”.
She added: “Parents have told The Sun they check what their kids are up to on their phones and talk to them about safety.
“That’s good, but it’s also important to remind children that they can turn off their phones, too.
“None of us wants our kids growing up glued to their phones, chasing ‘likes’ to make them feel happy, constantly worrying about their looks and image because of unrealistic lifestyles they see and permanently anxious about going offline.
“But this is the reality of many children’s lives — and we all have a responsibility to change it.
“If we don’t, we’ll be letting down a generation of children.”
Doctors also warn of significant health issues relating to smartphone use by youngsters.
Dr Richard Graham, consultant adolescent psychiatrist and technology addiction lead at London’s Nightingale Hospital, said: “There is endless research which links screen time to a number of health implications, from obesity to depression, so the risk is incredibly real.
“If we use smartphones well we develop critical thinking. But smartphones and some social media channels can promote passive viewing or scrolling; the next video plays for you automatically.
"You scroll down and just consume, rather than question what we’re viewing or what’s there.
"That passive scrolling and a decrease in critical thinking can lead to depression.”
He added the answer was not to stop kids having phones but to strike a balance.
He said: “It’s not about putting in knee-jerk responses and banning smartphones from your household.
AMY OLTAI’S five-year-old son, Harlee, used his smartphone and tablet for up to eight hours a day.
The mum, from King’s Lynn, Norfolk, says: “At first I was impressed that at such a young age he’d remember my PIN to log in or could download an app.
“But the hours were adding up – unless he had one in his hand he wasn’t happy.
“He refused to play with anything else and if he couldn’t find one of them or we said no, he’d have a screaming fit.
"The devices were his heroin and I know now it was causing behavioural, social and speech issues.
“Weaning a child like Harlee off a device is extremely hard. My husband and I are playing more with him using his own toys and I have signed him up for more sports activities and after-school clubs.
“We have dedicated tech and family time and just doing things with him is proving incred- ibly beneficial. He is speaking better and behaving.”
“As parents, it’s easy to get into a moral panic when you see your child is spending too many hours on their phone but we need the message to give the phone a break to make sense to them.
"Whether that’s Instagrammers talking about the benefits of time with friends and family or providers like YouTube getting rid of their autoplay function, there’s not a single fix — it’s multifaceted.
“Smartphones aren’t going anywhere so we need to adapt how we use them and how they enter our lives and make them work for us, rather than the other way round.”
