The trouble with young people today is that they just can’t pay attention, have no focus, are disrespectful, unengaged, lazy, unimaginative… I could go on.

Except that’s not the trouble with young people today – it’s what every single generation of adult in history has thought about those coming after them. Every age group thinks that it represents the zenith of history. Every age group is wrong in that assumption.

This article appears as part of the Lessons to Learn newsletter.

But all joking aside, things really are different this time – because technological advances mean that young people now have access to new devices that are, undoubtedly, causing massive problems and having a huge impact on their wellbeing.

Their minds are being poisoned, and their attachment to the real world is being destroyed. Standards of behaviour are also being seriously affected, and levels of violence are increasing.

We’ve seen similar moral panics about cinema, television, comic books, video games, professional wrestling, direct messaging systems, any number of music genres, and more on top. When paper replaced slates in schools, there would have been some lamenting the way in which this shift would be a catalyst for the end of society as we know it.

None of which is to say that phones in schools aren’t an issue, and a........

© Herald Scotland