Is the issue not social media rather than phones? That could be solved by laws requiring government registered ID needed to join networks. This would kill anonymity and make sure that age limits are kept to.

Parents should then be educated on the extensive parental controls at the heart of iOS and Android. It’s pretty easy to limit access to certain apps and check up on your kids behaviours.

Instead of knee jerk Luddite bans why not embrace the smartphone and properly educate kids in their use? And then we can take advantage of the fact that every kid comes to school with a computer in their pocket capable of so much?

I was worried in education myself for over a decade and what I saw was a need to put the smartphone at the heart of education and show young people just how bloody useful they are.