Campaign to bar under-14s from having smartphones signed by 100,000 parents
An online campaign committing parents to bar their children from owning a smartphone until they are at least 14 has garnered 100,000 signatures in the six months since its launch.The Smartphone Free Childhood campaign launched a “parent pact” in September in which signatories committed to withhold handsets from their children until at least the end of year 9, and to keep them off social media until they are 16.Daisy Greenwell, a cofounder of Smartphone Free Childhood, said parents had been put in an “impossible position” by the weak regulation of big tech companies, leaving them with a choice of getting their children a smartphone “which they know to be harmful” or leaving them isolated among their peers.“The overwhelming response to the parent pact shows just how many families are coming together to say ‘no’ to the idea that children’s lives must be mediated by big tech’s addictive algorithms,” she said.The biggest regional backing of the pact is in Surrey, where there have been 6,370 signatories, followed by Hertfordshire, where the city of St Albans is attempting to become Britain’s first to go smartphone-free for all under-14s.
More than 11,500 schools have signed – representing more than a third of the total of 32,000 in the UK.Celebrity signatories include the singer Paloma Faith, the actor Benedict Cumberbatch and the broadcaster Emma Barnett.According to research by the media regulator, Ofcom, 89% of 12-year-olds own a smartphone, a quarter of three- and four-year-olds do, and half of children under 13 are on social media.Supporters of a handset ban argue that smartphones distract children from schoolwork, expose them to harmful online content and facilitate addictive behaviour.Last week, after opposition from ministers, the Labour MP Josh MacAlister amended his private member’s bill that had proposed raising the age of digital consent from 13 to 16, meaning that social media companies would have required a parent’s permission to handle the data of a child under that age.
The bill now commits the government to researching the issue further rather than implementing immediate change,Some experts have cautioned that a full ban is impractical or excessive,Sonia Livingstone, a professor of social psychology at the London School of Economics, said it was “too simplistic” as it reduced the pressure on social media companies to reform their services so that children can get the benefits without the harms,She said any restrictions should be accompanied with alternative activities for children, especially opportunities to meet or play with friends, and it was important to recognise the practical uses of smartphones such as using maps, doing homework and contacting parents,“I completely understand why there is a desire for an age limit on owning smartphones, but I don’t think a blanket ban is the way to go,” Livingstone said.
Jimmy Kimmel: Trump ‘Intentionally crashing the economy for reasons unknown’
Late-night hosts talked the floundering US economy under Donald Trump, as Republican allies seek to deflect blame away from Trump’s tariffs.“Welcome to another episode of ‘how the hell do we make this funny?’” Jimmy Kimmel joked on Tuesday evening. In the seven weeks since Trump took office, “it’s been much worse than I think anyone thought it would be,” he continued. “We’re friends with Russia now, we’re dumping the Department of Education, we’re forcing ourselves on Canada.”And then there’s Trump’s tariffs, which he is using as a cudgel to encourage Canada to join the US
Noel Clarke’s lawyers threatened accuser with prosecution, court told
Noel Clarke’s lawyers sent a letter to a woman accusing him of sexual misconduct, threatening her with prosecution in an attempt at “witness intimidation”, the high court has heard.The 49-year-old actor, who is suing Guardian News and Media (GNM) for libel over seven articles and a podcast published between April 2021 and March 2022, was on Tuesday, confronted with more allegations made against him by women.On his second day of being cross-examined in the witness box, Clarke was asked about a letter sent to Imogen*, an actor who is due to give evidence that she was “harassed and preyed on” by the writer-director of the Kidulthood trilogy at a dinner.Gavin Millar KC, acting for the Guardian, said the letter sent by solicitors firm the Khan Partnership on behalf of Clarke, on 5 November 2024, four days after a hearing in the case had taken place, stated that Imogen had been circulating allegations about the former Doctor Who star and that they were “grounds for legal action and criminal investigation”.He continued: “You were trying to deter her from giving evidence on our [the Guardian’s] side weren’t you? … The truth is that this letter is a straightforward attempt at witness intimidation
Australia to host ‘Space-out competition’ – where people compete to do nothing
Are you good at doing nothing? If you are in Melbourne later this year, you’ll be able to put your skills to the test in a “Space-out competition” – in which participants compete to see who can zone out the most over 90 minutes.The Space-out competition was started by the South Korean artist Woopsyang after she experienced burnout while working a stressful advertising job. Posed as a challenge to hustle culture, the competition has been held in busy parts of Seoul, Hong Kong and Tokyo, and will be held in Melbourne’s bustling QV mall this June, as part of Rising festival, the city’s annual winter arts festival.Participants are disqualified if they laugh, check their phones or fall asleep, and are encouraged to come in their work clothes or uniform. Two winners are chosen at each competition: the contestant with the most stable heart rate and the crowd favourite, with an overall winner selected from the two
Stephen Colbert on Trump: ‘A sack of incompetence and malice’
Late-night hosts discussed how Donald Trump is tanking the US economy while also detailing the absurd attempts to de-woke the military.On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert started by talking about the daylight savings leap over the weekend, saying he has “never been more grateful to be one hour closer to the end”.This week has seen the stock market plummet with the Dow Jones index falling 890 points. Despite attempts, there is “no good way to spin the story” and the news has been “bumming out everybody on Wall Street” with those who work there reportedly exhausted.“Do you know how hard it is to exhaust Wall Street?” Colbert asked before joking that they wake up to a “hot cup of cocaine and then just to take the edge off, more cocaine”
The Beguiled: 1971 Clint Eastwood film is a sweaty, southern hothouse
On paper, Don Siegel’s 1971 southern gothic melodrama The Beguiled appears the perfect candidate for a remake: a critical and commercial failure in its own time, its infamous reputation helped it linger in the margins of popular consciousness. Sofia Coppola would have thought as much when she directed her own take on Thomas P Cullinan’s source novel in 2017. While Coppola’s version is full of distinct beauty, Siegel’s original stands alone in its unyielding thorniness.That may have seemed like a career misstep for star Clint Eastwood upon its initial release but it now stands clearly as one of the most potent subversions of the masculine archetype he helped popularise.Eastwood plays John McBurney, an unscrupulous corporal fighting for the Union during the waning days of the American civil war
Womadelaide 2025: Róisín Murphy, Khruangbin and others lead a blissful, sweltering weekend
Botanic Park, AdelaideDespite the heat, this year’s festival was full of magical moments and big sounds, with musicians making fascinating genre connectionsAs the sun set on day three of Womadelaide, under the bat colony at Tainmuntilla (Botanic Park), the audience were in a trance. The Brooklyn-based Colombian musician Ela Minus mixed her voice with synthesisers, prompting a roar from the crowd; strobe lighting pulsed over the moving mass of bodies. The surrounding pine trees somehow seemed to make the reverb echo even stronger, lifting us up through the canopy to the open stars above.Minus’s music is complex and expansive, pop music meets house. We were all hypnotised, dancing as one, slick with a day’s worth of sunblock and sweat
‘People want change’: voter anger opens door for Reform in key Labour seats
Jonathan Reynolds ‘corrects record’ for referring to himself as ex-solicitor
‘There is no moral case’: Labour divided over prospect of benefit cuts
Keir Starmer could face biggest rebellion over disability benefit freeze
UK accuses Russia of driving its Moscow embassy towards closure
The fruit of flattery is tariffs, but Trump-wrangler Starmer stays circumspect | John Crace