Newquay teacher warns of mental health impact from children using smartphones
She's calling for schools to ban phones as part of the 'Smartphone Free Childhood' campaign
A Cornwall teacher calling for smartphones to be banned across schools warns using them can be harmful to young people and their mental health.
A campaign is ongoing as part of 'Smartphone Free Childhood.'
"By saying smartphones aren't appropriate for school and aren't appropriate for young people and young minds, we hope more and more children will be growing up without a smartphone. We hope they'll go through puberty without having to have every aspect of their life, growth and development documented by themselves and their friends."
It comes ahead of the 'Online Safety Act' coming into motion later this week. The national bill will require online platforms to implement age verification measures to protect children from harmful content.
Charlie told us: "Children are very secretive about what they are doing on their phones. They don't feel they can share some of the things they've seen, read or what's being said about them with their parents.
"It's partly because they feel their parents will take their smartphones away from them, which is a huge concern.
"They're then seeing content which makes them feel this is normal part of childhood, which it shouldn't be."