Family Life

01.03.12 | Sarah Harnisch

  Children are becoming 'addicted' to computers. Children’s access to smartphones and computers should be limited to stop them becoming “addicted” to electronic gadgets, according to Barnaby Lenon, chairman of the Independent Schools Council. Lenon said young people’s reading and conversational skills were being put at risk by overexposure to modern technology. He said parents should resist buying sons and daughters a smartphone until they are at least 15 and limit computer use to an hour or two a day. In an interview, he said that exposure to computers was particularly damaging to boys, harming their long-term development. “It is very hard to prevent children from accessing damaging material through the computer, but the main issue is that children spend far too long on computers and, as a result, they are not doing the two things that we want [them] to do, which are reading and conversation.” He also recommends that computer use should be limited to one hour a day for children up to age 12, and 2 hours for older pupils.