Banning children from the internet is like ‘child abuse’, claims sociologist

When it comes to children and screen time, parents have conflicting views.

While some would argue that allowing young kids to spend hours on digital devices - such as smartphones, tablets and laptops - is detrimental to their overall wellbeing, others might hail the educational and developmental benefits that these devices can offer young minds.

The latter is certainly the narrative upheld by sociologist Ellis Cashmore, whose forthcoming book Screen Society challenges the consensus that screen exposure is damaging for children and warns parents against banning the internet at home, claiming that it’s “tantamount to child abuse”.


Cashmore, who is an honorary professor of sociology at Aston University, Birmingham, believes that screens offer children an array of activities similar to that which they could be doing offline and that banning them could infringe upon their sociological development.

“Imagine if parents stopped children reading, watching and conversing with other children, or playing educational games, drawing, colouring, dancing. Kids do all these kind of things when engaged with screens,” he told The Independent.

“If parents prevent children pursuing these kind of activities offline, they would be accused of some form of abuse. They'd effectively be stunting the child's development”

Lord Foul wrote:another freakin "ologist" spouting his crap

note that sociology is yet another overhyped pseudo science