Facebook builder would choose cocaine over smartphone for her son

mbl.is reports that a woman who helped build Facebook said she would rather give her son a gram of cocaine than a smartphone.

Family counsellor Jóhann Pétur Herbertsson recalled the woman’s comments during the Dagmál programme. He said she had sent her son to a special school where electronic devices were not allowed.

According to Herbertsson, the woman said she knew how the devices were designed and used. She would therefore rather let her son have a gram of cocaine than a smartphone.

Herbertsson said it was publicly known that some companies developing smartphone applications and devices employed behaviour specialists and psychologists to determine how best to make children dependent on their use.

“It is our role to protect children from this push,” he said, comparing the issue with the marketing of cigarettes and alcohol to children and teenagers.

He said smartphones and other devices could be both beneficial and harmful, and that parents needed to help children use them properly. In the programme, he also discussed parenting and offered advice on raising children.