How do bats avoid bumping into things in the dark? They’re governed by the same system, I suspect, as kids who, when scrolling their mobile phones, seem instinctively to know when to swerve to avoid collision, even if only by a nanosecond.

Most mornings a couple of teenagers pass our window, ignoring each other and scanning their screens with the concentration of prospectors panning for gold. Whenever my husband and I collect our grandchildren from primary school, older pupils from nearby schools pile onto the bus. Charging upstairs, they sit in silence, enveloped in their private screen worlds. When did young people stop talking to each other? Or communicate only online?

Adults, needless to say, behave just the same. Regardless of age, anyone with a phone has effectively shackled themselves to a device as needy as a newborn child: constantly demanding attention, eroding your concentration, destroying your social life and disturbing your sleep.

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It’s bad enough when you’re an adult, but for children it can be life-changing, for all the wrong reasons. Not surprisingly, teachers have long been complaining about the corrosive effect of mobile phones during lessons, causing continuous interruptions, and ruining everyone’s concentration.

In England over 90% of schools already ban phones during class, and for some the result has been transformational. The head teacher of Excelsior Academy in Hackney has been stunned by the change he’s seen in the space of a year. With the average grade at A level going from a C to a B, and pupils “chattier, nicer, more engaged,” he describes the impact as “a game changer”.

Only recently, however,........

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