We see smartphones everywhere. In school hallways, at the family dinner table and plugged in at the bedside table.
But how young is too young to be constantly connected to the rest of the world through sleek apps, social media and video messaging?
One Colorado man has decided that age 13 seems like a good cutoff.
Tim Farnum is leading the charge on a proposed ballot initiative in Colorado that would be the first of its kind in the country. Farnum's proposal would ban the sale of smartphones to children younger than 13, or more likely, to parents who intend to give the smartphone to kids in that age bracket.
Farnum, a Denver-area anesthesiologist, is the founder of Parents Against Underage Smartphones, or PAUS, the nonprofit group pushing the proposal.
Source: Coloradoan.com
Also reported by: The Washington Post
Initial Fiscal Impact Statement: Colorado.gov [PDF]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @08:13AM (2 children)
I suspect this is sarcasm, but I actually do have auto-play blocked on Youtube.
You see, I use something called "open in new tab", and if one of the tabs suddenly has a video playing, I need to flip through all of them to find and pause the offender. And that's assuming that audio is playing, otherwise I probably won't notice until I get to the video I want to watch, and notice that it's already half way through the video.
Why I use open in new tab? Because when I see something I want to watch, I need to click on it before scrolling on, or I will never find it again.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Tuesday June 20 2017, @02:25PM (1 child)
Well, not quite. These days Firefox and Chrome put a speaker icon on sound-producing tabs.
Your complaints are well taken though. The web is a bloated spammy trainwreck. Real pity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @08:47PM
Too bad browsers aren't more modular. They're a bloated codebase the user has little control over :(