News just in: the sky is blue, water is wet, and tracking our kids’ every move with phones or AirTags is causing a “deeply concerning” increase in anxiety among young people, according to more than 70 psychologists, doctors, nurses and health professionals who have come together to urge parents to “reconsider whether the surveillance childhood we are sleepwalking into is really benefiting our children”. They add: “We are implicitly telling them that the world is unsafe,” and warn that constant monitoring prevents kids learning the skills and developing the autonomy necessary to navigate real life.

“It’s so normal to want to keep our children safe,” says Clare Fernyhough, co-founder of campaign group Generation Focus. “But there is no evidence that tracking makes them any safer.”

It’s also a staggering invasion of privacy. I would never track my son – I’m his mother, not his Big Brother. I tried it once and that was more than enough. In the penultimate year of primary school there was a class trip to Lille. Some mums suggested going in together on a multipack of AirTags, and without really thinking I agreed, and put one in his backpack. On the edge of my seat I watched, more gripped than by every Traitors final ceremony combined, as his little dot inched painfully slowly........

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