My holiday of relaxation was cruelly interrupted by a disease with no boundaries - Renee Hoenderkamp

The obvious place to see it is from the cradle. Children as young as six to eight months propped up in their buggies and high chairs with screens plonked in front of them.

Mesmerised, quiet. And that seems to be the aim. A sedated child into whose mouth an exhausted or lazy parent can shovel food. Task done. But is that really the only task of a parent?

I personally don’t think so. But I am in the privileged position of having been a new parent at 21 and then again at 51. I have to be honest, at 21 I didn’t see the wonder of a child in quite the same way as I do now.

If it had been available, I too may have been seduced by the power of a screen to keep my very energetic little one occupied whilst I did one of the many chores that a mum has on her daily list.

Occupied at the dinner table so that I didn’t have to bargain, cajole and beg him to eat his peas. But I have hindsight, I see the difference in my parenting now and the resultant behaviour of my daughter now and can compare her to the children who are now being raised by screen.

The difference in happiness, vocabulary, ability to converse, manners and eagerness to partake in whatever is going on around her, her eagerness to play cards with us at dinner, play a word game, and add up coins.

And as a society, we are living the results of screen parenting. Children have never been more unhappy, more connected and yet lonelier. ADHD, depression and autism diagnosis are going through the roof. They are losing the ability to focus on anything more than a 10-second clip with a dopamine reward with each screen swipe. We are stealing our children’s childhood, their natural curiosity and learning curve. The data is clear, screens are damaging children. Their brains are being rewired and not in a good way. I am constantly astounded that whilst we don’t allow children to drink alcohol or smoke because those activities are dangerous for their health, and even as we learn with every passing day that allowing screen time is equally damaging, we turn a blind eye.

I already knew this about children; what really struck me this week was the adults. Adults of all ages are absolutely addicted to their screens, oblivious to those around them, oblivious to the disruption they cause. That little oblong TV has turned people into selfish monsters.

It was rife, from people sitting in the restaurant having video calls, no headphones, for the duration of their meal. Why would you want someone to watch you eating and talking simultaneously anyway? Notwithstanding those around, the need to have their meal whilst on a video call, why would you want someone watching you talk and eat? Why would you think that other diners want to share your call?

And before you say ‘Isn’t it just like two people talking’. No, it’s not one bit like that. The voice emanating from the screen is at a tinny pitch different from the voice in the room. It cuts through all other sounds. Worse still, many people do this whilst sitting with someone at their table, someone not being included in this cute conversation. They just sit there, either awkwardly or scrolling their own device in the meantime.

There was also the sadness of young couples at dinner together not talking but both independently scrolling through their phones and occasionally showing the other something that they exchanged a few words over. Small talk is dead apparently. Chewing over the cud of the day, the latest news, the gossip from work, what colour to paint the bathroom, used to happen over food or a coffee. Now it’s a TikTok clip or nothing.

But perhaps even sadder were the many elderly people doing the same. Sitting at a table with a friend/s one or all of them was engrossed in their screen and not each other. I was reminded of the damage of isolation to health and increasing the risk of dementia and here I was watching people who in name only were not isolated but out with friends but in reality may as well have been sitting in a cupboard alone with their screen. This is isolation in another name.

It didn’t stop in the restaurant; there was the lovely spa and pool. Plinky plonky relaxing music, dim lighting, serenity. Until that selfish, couldn’t-give-a-damn adult, decides that it’s too boring to just sit and relax or read a book (you know, books…) so they put their film/TikTok scrolling on, no headphones, never headphones, and just get stuck in. And the rest of us, well, we have no choice but to get stuck in too. On one occasion it was so loud that I got up and mentioned to the middle-aged man that it ‘was very loud’ thinking that would guilt him to the realisation that it wasn’t just loud, it was anti-social. But no, I got a thumbs up and he turned it down by one-minute notch, no insight at all.

What has happened to society? We are social beings, we need interaction, we need company and without it health deteriorates, language suffers and children’s brains don’t develop as they should. As every day goes by, more and more members of our once communal society are dragged into this vacuous world where one doesn’t need another human to exist. Children don’t need adults to entertain them, teach them, raise them. The elderly get more isolated, teenagers get lonelier, couples stop talking, and social skills are diminished at every turn. As we march along this route we get more selfish, less aware of others around us and more determined to always think only of ‘me’ and let us not forget, the billionaire social media owners laugh all the way to their data bank and we are the product.

It's time to ban phones for those under-16s. I would go as far as 18. Ban them in restaurants and any social space without the use of headphones and educate mums on the clear and permanent damage they are doing to their babies and our future.