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Owner of Al Condominio in Verona says response to the initiative during meals has been very positive

An Italian restaurant is offering a free bottle of wine to customers who relinquish their mobile phones during meals.

Angelo Lella, the owner of Al Condominio, a restaurant that opened in the northern city of Verona in March, said the aim was to revive the conviviality of an eatery in which diners chat to each other as opposed to constantly glancing at their phones.

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South Korean firm regains pole position amid biggest drop in iPhone sales since Covid-19 lockdowns

Apple has lost its spot as the world’s biggest mobile phone seller after a steep sales drop as South Korean rival Samsung retook the lead in the global market share.

Samsung had been the biggest seller of mobile phones for 12 years until the end of 2023, when sales of Apple’s iPhone models overtook it .

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The rise in mental health problems in young people should force politicians to act

Across the rich world, a problem emerges. Children are spending more time hunched over iPhones working on their personal brands and less time building mud huts in the woods with their friends. Social stakes have got higher: the right post, message, or photo can give you a huge blast of approval; one mis-step could make you an outcast.

Playful and elastic real-life interactions have been replaced by unforgiving virtual hierarchies, in which your position is precisely quantified, recorded and made to matter more.

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The photographer was in Nepal when she happened upon a wedding ceremony and a once-in-a-lifetime image

Joyful, dancing wedding guests were following a ceremonial procession and car through the streets of Bhaktapur, Nepal, when Callie Eh happened upon them. The Malaysian photographer was in the country for a photography workshop.

“I try to attend them every year or so,” says Eh, who now lives in Switzerland. “I can improve on existing skills and learn new ones, meet other photographers and exchange ideas.”

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Regulating new technology is never simple, but the status quo offers inadequate protection

The principle that some products are available to adults and not children is uncontroversial. Access to weapons, alcohol and pornography is curtailed in this way because a level of maturity is the precondition for access (but not a guarantee of responsible use).

Until recently, few people put smartphones in that category. The idea of an age restriction on sales would be dismissed as luddism or state-control freakery. But ministers are reported to be considering just such a ban for under-16s. Opinion polls suggest that it could be popular with parents. Government guidance already calls for a de facto ban on mobile phone use in schools in England and Wales. Many headteachers had already imposed rules to that effect. If there is not yet a consensus that young people’s use of smartphones needs stricter regulation, that is the trajectory.

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Polls show significant support for curb to protect children but some Tories uneasy with idea of government ‘microparenting’

Ministers are considering banning the sale of smartphones to children under the age of 16 after a number of polls have shown significant public support for such a curb.

The government issued guidance on the use of mobile phones in English schools two months ago, but other curbs are said to have been considered to better protect children after a number of campaigns.

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A massive cliff and a fearless friend helped the photographer capture an unforgettable image

“Eskil is a tough guy,” Atle Rønningen says of the friend he was hiking Pulpit Rock with. “It’s a massive cliff over 600 metres high, in Preikestolen, Norway. It’s so popular and busy in the summer months, so we went in the spring as soon as the snow had gone. It was still icy in some places, and the weather changed abruptly all day,” he says.

It was fortunate Eskil had no fear of heights, Rønningen adds, because as he approached the ledge, the rain had turned to snow and the wind had picked up. Even so, the guys kept their goal in mind. “We wanted to show how capable mobile phone photography is,” Rønningen explains. “This was 2014, so Instagram was very new and few people knew how to take good pictures using their phone. We wanted to show what could be done.”

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Tech firms can do more, but it’s the government’s job to ensure children have safe places to play – and it’s not doing it

Three-quarters of children want to spend more time in nature. Having spent the Easter weekend trying to force four resistant teenagers off their phones and out for a nice walk over the Yorkshire Dales, admittedly I’ll have to take the National Trust’s word for this. But that’s what its survey of children aged between seven and 14 finds, anyway.

Kids don’t necessarily want to spend every waking minute hunched over a screen, however strongly they give that impression; even though retreating online satisfies the developmentally important desire to escape their annoying parents, even teenagers still want to run wild in the real world occasionally. Their relationship with phones is complex and maddening, but not a million miles off adults’ own love-hate relationship with social media; a greasy sugar-rush we crave but rarely feel better for indulging. Yet lately, longstanding parental unease over children’s screen habits has been hardening into something more like revolt.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

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