UK ministers considering banning sale of smartphones to under-16s | Smartphones

40 comments

1. As the parent of a teenage I’m not a massive fan of smartphone use by under 16s but this idea is just batshit crazy and completely unworkable. For a party that has a big emphasis on personal responsibility and liberty it’s just mind boggling.

2. Presumably most kids are having their phones bought for them by their parents though? And then you consider iPads and computers in general.

   In short, completely unworkable headline-grabbing nonsense, as usual.

3. The parents will just buy them and gift them to the kids then, or the kids will end up with the previous generation model once the parents upgrade. Smartphone content is concerning for young people, but this isn’t the fix.

4. this would be a completely pointless gesture. Literally just a waste of government time and tax payers money.

   Fucking hell, its been 14 years and I am still waiting for them to have just 1 good idea.

5. Great, tired of these 15-year-olds holding up the queue in the shops buying smartphones.

6. Kids don’t have the funds to pay for a Smartphone anyway 

7. How many under-16s are buying their own phones? They can’t get contracts and I doubt many of them have several hundred quid plus to buy off contract.

8. Impossible to enforce and further proves that laws written by grieving parents aren’t the answer.

9. Can’t have these kids being informed and in touch with the wider world.

   Boomer law, not for safety , just because they are mostly sad angry cunts.

   Little Britain syndrome.

10. The bigger issue for me is the ease with which any criminal can obtain multiple sim cards for cash, making the tracing of phone users, using phones for crime much more difficult.

    Why not control the issuance of sim cards to people providing photo id . It would make criminal use of phones much more difficult.

11. Great way to set the younger generation back in terms of technology and then employability

12. It’s about bloody time. Every weekday I see gangs of school kids in the corner shop getting smartphones over the counter

13. Yeah this will never happen. How do you define smartphone anyway.

14. >UK ministers considering banning sale of smartphones to under-16s

    That’s ridiculous. Should be only available to people over 30 at the very least.

15. This will be entirely ineffective.
    Under 16s aren’t the ones buying smartphones, under 16s can’t afford to buy smartphones. Their parents are the ones who buy them smartphones and will be able to continue doing so.

    If this ban came into effect the amount of under 16s with smartphones wouldn’t change to a noticeable degree.

16. Let’s create a solution to a problem that isn’t workable. You could just make kids place phones in a very secure locked cupboard in the form room and then say they can’t get them back until after school finishes. That would mean kids focused in classes more, people doing ged beaten up in school times and it filmed for social media and they’d have to actually communicate with each other.

    My idea is a very simple one but they will do the most convoluted version possible.

17. Seemingly the aim is to restrict access to social media, which I’m not entirely against. But not sure this is the way to do it.

    Surprised they aren’t just trying to tax people for using them, that’s the normal go to.

18. It is a stupid idea that is being suggested by people with no actual clue about how the technology works.

    I have friends that are devout christians. They had the idea of not allowing their kids to have unmonitored internet access. So they put their kids on voice only plans, to keep them safe.

    You should have seen their faces when I pointed out that they could be anywhere in the town centre and be on public access Wifi. Literally every business has it.

    People need to step up and be parents. I know exactly what my teen is up to online.

19. If this came into effect it could be a good step towards fixing some of the issues youths face today

20. Alternative title; UK ministers considering ID requirement for owning any internet connected device

21. “UK ministers ~~considering banning sale of~~ creating black market for smartphones ~~to~~ for under-16s”.

22. If something like this would be amazing, if done in a smart and workable way.
    It will obviously never be done, especially not by incompetent idiots currently in charge.
    Perhaps smart phones should be considered almost like cigarettes? If you are under 16, it would be illegal for anyone to give you a smart phone? I don’t know, I would need to think about it. But I definitely believe that something needs to be done about social media and kids. Every data we have shows social media/smart phones have been a disaster.

23. I have a modest proposal.

    First, we legislate that access to any and all social media apps and platforms is strictly via through multipoint biometrics – i.e. face *and* fingerprint.

    Then, we conduct facial scans of all children at birth and every six months to a year thereafter, and similar for fingerprints. These will be stored in a large digital filing card system, which the nerds will call a “database” (whatever *that* means), to which all the social media apps and platforms must defer for authentication. Failure to maintain one’s childrens’ biometrics will initially result in fines, but ultimately in prison and having one’s children taken away for ~~medical experiments~~ adoption.

    I for one can see no real issues with any of the above, and it will provide a quick and easy solution to the problem of children spending too much time making and watching TokTiks.

24. Only helpful to avoid kids with really controlling parents being able to buy a phone to text their friends without a bunch of text stalking.

25. The admin is not a legitimate issue to preclude this.

    The average normal person changes sim cards pretty infrequently. It can be managed.

    It would be very effective at providing the police with instant ID of phone subscriber and massively disrupt drug crime since they do most business through a constant stream of sim cards.

26. A couple of lessons of coding would solve this for any teen.

    *Maybe their future career is in cyber?*

27. How on earth will labour counter this clearly workable idea that’s bound to be a huge vote winner?

28. But then how will redditors text their girlfriends?

29. Jesus fuck. Let’s just ban the internet next. What about banning air? Why are we so obsessed with banning everything now? Dystopian shithole.

    Parents need to get off their arses and do some parenting instead of shoving devices with no parental controls in front of kids.

30. It’s unworkable , but let’s be honest, something as a society needs to be done

    I imagine in 40-50yrs time we’re going to see alot of cervical spine issues rising.

    A phone isn’t just a phone these days and that’s where the issue lies, with access to TikTok , Facebook, insta etc etc. Parents are being less responsible for their kids with many essentially growing up in an online world .

    Phones are additive devices and apps like TikTok, instagram, and YouTube capitalise on shorts in order keep rewarding the reward centres, they’re dopamine on drip.

    So whilst this is an unworkable plan, what is the actual solution , and what trajectory do we think it’s going to take?

31. Another policy that is designed to make it look they are doings something when in fact they are doing fuck all.

32. Interesting the government feel they have the right to control the lives of anyone under the age of 16, yet they can’t vote. Short term thinking from a government that is out to make what it can for its mates now, are expense of the 80 million people it’s shitting on.

33. 16 year olds don’t have the cash to buy smart phones….

34. Yeah you don’t get it? Do you think suddenly you can enforce a law on people that use devices for since they were born? Hahhaa good luck.

    It’s the same i tell some relatives. They allowed their kid to spend time on devices since they were born with no limit and at 8 years of age they think now that they can strictly enforce time limits without expecting tantrums and rebellion haha.

    Of course the kid will be outraged that because the normality you made him used to is now not there anymore…. It won’t work, the same reason this law is pointless and stupid. My parents took my TV cable, mouse and keyboard away, disconnected my internet and locked the door of that room.

    Every time they did something i successfully undermined their authority, i found the key, i connected the internet, found the peripherals and cracked the windows password. There’s no way you can take devices away from people like me that grew up with those things.

35. The devil lies in the details. If a young person is really driven to have an unmonitored smart device then they currently can quite easily have access to one. £100 isn’t too hard for a 14 year old to pull together for a second hand model that’s maybe 5 years old, like a Samsung A10.

    But really the government should be putting more pressure on manufacturers and software vendors to allow bought mobiles for children to have parental control set easily.

36. When I was 13-14 I was really into collecting old smartphones, reviewing them on YouTube, and tinkering with their system. So many good memories. I’d get pocket money every week and save up and go to the local second hand store in my town to buy devices, it was such an exciting experience. This would deprive many kids of similar enjoyment. Most teens get their daily driver from their parents anyway and the provider probably won’t know it’s for an under 16. So all the normies will still have their latest iPhones and the nerds will have to suffer.

37. Uk ministers considering how to waste more time pretending they’re doing something useful.

38. Im glad their doing something constructive with their time

39. This is about item 1,000,047 on my list of things I want them to ‘fix’ (and I have kids). Slightly ahead of ‘lets ban porn’ and ‘UK cheese exports’. What I’d like to know is what is being done about all the covid money and when is the election.

40. Then they need to stop schools from setting homework online first.