Mobile phones like a ‘loaded shotgun’ to our kids: Candice Warner
The wife of Australian cricket great David Warner has spoken of the dangers of children using mobile phones.
Entertainment
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Candice Warner has likened mobile phones to “a loaded shotgun” to kids, urging Australians to be careful with their kids online.
The media personality wife of cricket star David Warner conceded there were some positives but warned of the growing concerns around social media use.
“My kids don’t have phones. I have a social and Instagram account that I manage for my kids,” Warner said on the latest episode of the Mental As Anyone podcast.
“You can use social media in a very positive way but in regards to Snapchat, TikTok, all those things … Snapchat is just so dangerous because I don’t have it but as soon as you send a message, you can delete it. But … the damage is done.”
Federal parliament last year moved to ban social media use for those aged under 16, receiving bipartisan government support with the legislation.
The decision made Australia the first globally to push ahead with such measures and followed The Daily Telegraph’s Let Them Be Kids campaign.
“Social media, they won’t get it until the law allows them so I’m hoping it’s 18 but it’s also about teaching our kids how to use it,” the mother-of-three said of her three daughters.
“What you put out there is out there forever. I think you’d be naive to say your kids are never gonna have it, because at some stage, they’re going to want it, their friends are going to have it. There’s going to be peer pressure.”
British television show Adolescence has prompted broader discussions around mobile phone use, particularly online-provoked male violence and teens radicalised by the ‘manosphere’.
It has been a massive hit internationally and stars breakout actor Owen Cooper as 13-year-old Jamie Miller who is arrested for the murder of one of his classmates.
Warner explained that her daughters had been exposed to online bullying despite the fact they monitor their use of kids messenger.
“It is heartbreaking to see the kind of messages that were sent to my daughter,” she explained, adding that some of the messages included: “you’re an ugly rat”, “don’t come to school”, “you’re fat” and “we’re going to smash you”.
“To be exposed to that, I mean as adults, we struggle to deal with online bullying ourselves and having that emotional intelligence to know what to do. But as an eight-year-old, they don’t have the coping mechanism. So my daughter was the one apologising to this other young girl. Once the damage is done, it is very hard to reverse it.”
She continued: “I try to be as positive and the best influence that I can possibly be for my girls. And I always try to explain things and, being bullied myself, I feel like I can give some really good advice. It’s having that courage to stand up to bullies is the only way it’s going to stop. And for young girls, that’s really scary and that’s really hard, but it’s just finding that voice and that courage.”
Elsewhere in the Mental As Anyone interview, Warner spoke of her 2007 Clovelly Hotel incident with Sonny Bill Williams.
“I was ashamed. I was embarrassed. I was publicly humiliated. I think being the female in that situation in such a public place and it all being played out in the media, I was sort of, I suppose, slut shamed.
We’ve come a long way since then and we know that that’s just not the right thing to do, but I didn’t have a platform, I didn’t social media then there was no podcast. I didn't’ have a voice.
She also discussed her enduring 10-year-marriage to David, whom she described as “a big kid”.
“David is one of those guys who, again, similar to myself, I think people through seeing how competitive he’s on the field have a misconception of the man that he is.
You couldn’t ask for a better father – he’s loving, he’s caring, he is incredibly generous and kind. But it comes with its challenges and we’ve overcome them as a couple and like any other marriage, there’s ups, there’s downs, there’re highs, there are lows, there is all those things. We’re no different to anyone else, but we have a solid foundation. We love one another and we encourage each other.
* A new episode of Mental As Anyone is released each Tuesday.
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Originally published as Mobile phones like a ‘loaded shotgun’ to our kids: Candice Warner
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