Sophie Winkleman has narrated this article for you to listen to.
I am not often lost for words, but the five middle-aged homeless men who spoke at the Big Issue celebration in the House of Lords last month left me truly awestruck. All five had endured lives of childhood abandonment, violence, pain, destitution. All five had emerged from the darkness philosophical, hopeful and loving of their fellow man. I have not stopped thinking about them, and when I start on my usual daily beefs – signs on the Tube telling me I mustn’t give money to beggars (why not if I want to?); signs on the Tube telling me I can’t stare at people (what if someone is listening to a deafening violent video on their phone, should I deck them instead?); signs on the Tube telling me I mustn’t press into someone (try the Victoria line at 6 p.m., you TfL halfwits) – I think of these brave, strong men and I breathe in deeply.
I’m seeing these daft Tube signs rather a lot lately. My life is now hopping on the District line to Westminster for a daily fight to ban smartphones and social media for under-16s, along with a gang of cross-party MPs, writers, teachers and doctors. The facts are so bleak – the failing eyesight, wrecked concentration spans, antisocial behaviour, insomnia, depression, self-harm, anorexia, porn and gaming addictions and worse. The teens I’ve met across the country (in my role as patron of an education charity) are desperate for the damn things to be taken away. Many libertarians think the onus should be on parents to ban smartphones, not the government. That’s fair enough in principle, impossible in practice. Every atom of a teen’s life is online: travel card, bank card, social life, even homework. These machines are designed by geniuses to be more addictive than heroin – it’s not possible to put them down.
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