I’m so sick of tech illiteracy and ignorance at the heart of government. It makes no odds who’s in charge. All politicians run around screaming “THINK OF THE CHILDREN!” to, ironically, satisfy perennially online older people talking bollocks on Facebook and Mumsnet.

That’s not to say there aren’t problems when it comes to tech and children. The internet in particular presents major challenges. But shielding kids from so much and creating a cliff-edge at 18 won’t help. Nor will removing mobiles fix attention issues or deal with bullying.

As per the BBC, the latest wheeze in England is to ban kids at school in England from even having a phone in their possession. But so much of modern life requires a smartphone. What are children who use one for access to public transport supposed to do?

There are other practical reasons to have a device too. My youngling’s school had to evacuate after a major gas leak. Kids having phones helped coordinate with parents rather than the school being swamped with such efforts. The government would suggest you buy a brick phone, but that adds cost and assumes people have the means. It adds to e-waste. It’s another thing to take care of.

Access to phones “risks pulling children away from their learning and from each other”, the government said. How? If there’s an on-campus usage ban, which most schools already implement, how are children being pulled away from learning? One response was that kids are “still TikToking in the toilets”, to which I’d say citation required. And kids still need a device anyway, because homework and other communications now come via apps. Parents therefore often provide kids with one piece of tech that can do everything. Such efforts will now be undermined.

I fear a slippery slope. Sooner or later, the UK government will push for a full ban on smartphones for the under-18s. Then everyone will act all shocked when there are problems with buses and trains, a bunch of teachers start having issues with the physical searches that are being mooted, and kids end up in a worse spot than they were before.

If we really do want to think of the children, how about choosing education over eradication when it comes to technology?