Nobody would put their name to the word safe.
Dr Becky Foljambe is a GP. She gave evidence to a parliamentary committee in March on screens in classrooms, and she arrived at this conversation having spent the year asking one question that nobody has answered: where is the proof that iPads in schools are safe for the children sitting in front of them?
When Brogan's team went looking for the person who said it was, they could not find one. No name, no company, no face. The claim is everywhere and it belongs to nobody.
In this conversation with Brogan Garritt-Smith she makes her case: that Covid was a grotesque experiment in what happens to children's learning and their wellbeing when they sit inside on screens all day; that there is no evidence of safety and no evidence of efficacy over traditional teaching, and that the academic work points the other way; that devices are now handed out as readily as a water cup in a classroom; that two million children in this country need speech and language input and the therapists on her team have seen caseloads rise 27% in two years; that the average age of first access to porn is 13 and most children never went looking for it, it was fed to them; that A&E consultants are seeing fewer broken arms and more self-harm, acute distress and psychosis, and nobody is asking those children about their screens. And that she has already heard enough, in her own seat, as a doctor.
Then Brogan says something she has not said on this channel before, about the child she was.
We are told screens are helping our children learn better.
Says Who?
She explains:
- What a doctor sees in the surgery that does not show up in any study
- Why she says there is no evidence of safety, and what the evidence there is actually shows
- What screens appear to be doing to children's bodies, their minds and their words
- Why ADHD symptoms may be reversible in children whose lives have been blighted by them
- What happened when Brogan's team tried to find the person who said this was safe
0:00 The cold open
0:56 Screens make our children learn better. Says who?
2:40 What is actually happening inside the classroom
6:59 Covid was a grotesque experiment
12:31 The head in Kent who banned the phones
26:51 A babysitter, an educator, a pacifier
33:08 Retinol on a four year old
33:51 Nobody on the beach actually looks like that
35:51 One in five have had a relationship with a chatbot
38:53 Five hours a day, and the risk climbs
40:58 Most of them did not even go looking for it
42:09 I was one of those vulnerable children
46:06 Take the screens away, then reassess
47:54 ADHD, and the children we think need the devices more
51:32 Is there a sweet spot for screen time?
53:30 In the Night Garden took seven years to make
54:50 Two million children waiting for speech and language
56:49 We don't have any evidence of safety
1:00:11 Settle it then, Dr Becky
1:00:53 They are tools, they are not an oracle
Says Who? with Brogan Garritt-Smith. New episodes weekly.
Listen: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/says-who/id1713423794
Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@sayswhothepodcast
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brogan.garritsmith
Dr Becky Foljambe on iPads in schools and screens in classrooms, screen time and ADHD, does social media cause ADHD, screen time for toddlers, and teenage mental health.
