British doctors have declared a public health emergency due to smartphones in children

Leading British doctors have declared the use of phones by children to be a "public health emergency." This was reported on January 17 by The Times newspaper.

It is noted that the Academy of Royal Medical Colleges, representing 23 royal medical colleges and faculties, sent a letter to British ministers warning about the negative impact of phones on the physical and mental health of children.

"The letter sent to Health Minister Wes Streeting and Education Minister Bridget Phillipson comes at a time when the government is preparing to announce plans to restrict the use of social media by people under the age of 16," the material says.

A general practitioner, Dr. Rebecca Foljambe, said that she sees "many cases of harm to children and adolescents due to online content" every day.

Optometrist Daniel Hardiman warned that due to excessive screen time, more and more children need glasses at an early age, and suggested that by 2050, 40% of children will have myopia.

In addition, psychiatrist Matthew Sadlier pointed to the "atrophy of spatial memory" due to smartphones, as more and more people rely on apps for navigation and "lose the ability to navigate independently in space."

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On January 10, American billionaire and entrepreneur Elon Musk made a repost of a photo of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in a bikini generated by artificial intelligence (AI), saying that the British authorities want to ban freedom of speech. This is how the billionaire reacted to reports that the UK authorities are considering banning the social network X due to the Grok chatbot scandal. Users have started using the neural network to create sexualized deepfakes of real people, including celebrities and children.

On January 12, Starmer warned that the country would establish control over Grok, integrated X, if the American company did not take measures to regulate it. The Prime Minister added that the Government will not tolerate violations of security and human rights. At the same time, the media regulator Ofcom launched an investigation into X. Later, Starmer said that the management of the social network would still work on Grok to comply with the country's legislation.

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