Forbidden to see their friends during lockdown, children have been interacting on smartphones and tablets even more than usual.
Children are becoming addicted to their phones
With ever younger children owning mobile phones, many parents are concerned that their offspring are growing addicted to them.
Yet half a century ago, children’s personal foundations were built on face-to-face interactions; their only way of communicating during the weekends was to attend Sunday school!
And although children are connected to the web for hours a day, the past ten years have been called a “decade of disconnection”.
Digital devices also have a more sinister side; technology favours tyranny. Autocrats can use technology to centralise power, gather intelligence and override privacy. Thus dissidents in China are increasingly vulnerable, according to The Times’ Roger Boyes.
Technology favours tyranny
Is it any coincidence that the devices which govern our relationships run on silicon microchips which come from sand? Jesus warns against sandy foundations: “But everyone who hears these sayings of mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand” (Matthew 7:26).
Hence a policy of the Christian People’s Alliance party is to have mentoring on our streets, since few neighbours actually know each other any more.
Our society risks collapse if we do not return to the solid foundation of face-to-face
contact.
Ashley Dickenson
Carshalton, Surrey