Hello and welcome to The Spectator podcast. I'm Lara Prendergast. It seems that everyone,

young or old, has a smartphone these days. But why are the brightest mind in Silicon Valley

now stopping their children from using screens? Have they realised something? And are we addicted to smartphones?

Also on this podcast, Tory MEPs recently voted in support of Victor Orban's government in the European

Parliament. So are British Tories now flirting with the far right? And if they are, could it be

because the Tories have no attractive policies?

Should we be returning to one-nation Toryism?

First up, it's time for a wake-up call.

We're all becoming hopelessly addicted to smartphones.

But what's more, Jenny McCartney finds that there's a growing movement in Silicon Valley against smart technology.

She writes about this in this week's cover piece and joins me now.

I'm also joined by Jamie Bartlett, author and tech blogger. So Jenny, you start in your piece looking at smartphone addiction and saying you're concerned about your children's use of smartphones.

Can you just tell us a bit more about that to start with? Well, I'm not so desperately concerned

about my children's use of smartphones

because they don't, as I say at the end of the piece, they don't actually have them.

My son has a Nokia brick that doesn't do very much and my daughter doesn't have one yet.

But I think in general parents are very concerned, particularly when their children hit the teenage years,

because having a portable

computer, a portable access to the internet, makes teenagers in particular very vulnerable

to the judgment of their peers. And I think people use the internet for two things, for

affirmation and for information. And of course, some of us use it for a blend of both

those things, but teenagers are more likely to use it for affirmation. And if positive remarks don't

...