WHAT an honour last week to have an upcoming local fashion designer put together an outfit for me. She so got me. Orange flared trousers and matching top with purple trimmings. Nipped in waist. Flouncy layers. It would have been perfect for the Barry Manilow concert last month. It effortlessly channelled a Copacabana vibe: “She lost her youth/And she lost her love /And now she’s lost her mind…” (That’s from the song dear reader, not my new byline).
But it was also a breath of fresh air. For this vision came from the extensive drawing book of a twelve-year-old. Yes! Hold the front page, Editor. A young person not on their mobile phone eight hours a day. Instead she is drawing, crafting, colouring, singing in musicals, having dancing lessons and more.
Thank heavens schools are now taking the damaging effects of mobile phone usage seriously and banning them, as her state school has done. As Eton will do from September. Exactly how corrosive and not smart, mobile phones are, is confirmed by the latest research. They are actually lowering IQ. Our national decline seems complete. From a nation of shopkeepers to a nation of shoplifters, now we are perilously close to becoming a massive blob of downward facing thickies.
I’m not immune. The other day I got into a huge panic. “Have you seen my phone, Chris? I need to urgently look up something for Mum.” My tone implied he was somehow implicated in its disappearance. His cool reply? “It’s in your hand. You’re on your phone talking to her…”
My phone is reflecting back an image of me I don’t like. I once watched a reel of clips showing men having accidents in golf buggies. Yes it was funny. But the algorithm now regularly sends me similar. Am I really no better than someone whose hobby is watching men being catapulted out of trees when their attempt at chain sawing goes wrong? Or sliding down a scaffolding ladder at 90mph?
I would go further. I would also ban people from using a phone while walking! I notice people locked into staring down into their phone totally unaware of their surroundings walking in town!
Where is the interaction with the world around you? The evidence shows that since smart phones took over in 2014, the younger generation have been steadily missing out on learning vital social skills, and from real-life experience.
I would also add a new crime against humanity to the Geneva Convention. At the Hague, on trial without impunity, would be all adults using a mobile phone in a crowded place, whilst dragging a small suitcase behind them on a fully extended handle. Dodging offenders at Waterloo Station has made me more agile and forward passing than half the England squad.
We adults need to set an example by switching our phones off. Let’s throw down the holiday challenge and impose a collective ban. It is going to take planning on the scale of the D-Day Landings. For example, the car journey. I-spy or Name that Car will not last much beyond the next county. What about a collective Room 101 competition? What would you ban and why?
Or taking pens and paper for drawing competitions? Is it too outrageous to suggest setting a reading a book challenge? After all, it may well rain. Every day.
Is it hopelessly nostalgic to suggest packing some old-fashioned board games? A guide to card games? The old saying was “Idle hands make for the Devil’s work”. It’s true. We were kept distracted and out of remand homes, well into our teens, by making stuff. We were painting stones, embroidering drink mats – badly – and knitting scarves for guinea pigs.
All the important life skills learnt in one summer! Now hands are occupied by mindless scrolling and endless hair checking.
Phones are just expensive mirrors. Let’s put them down.
Comment: Joanna Lewis: 'Put down those mobile phones'
Endless hair checking on mobile phones (Image: PA)
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