Readers' Letters: Be alive to real dangers of social media to young

This is also divorced from the reality of our children, many of whom are being exposed to algorithmic exploitative pornography, rampant bullying, body shaming and comparison, as well as suicide websites. Their mobile phone devices have been specifically designed to be addictive by Big Tech to make money. I would encourage him to watch the Channel 4 documentary Molly and the Machine, broadcast on 1 March and premiered earlier at the Glasgow Film Festival, concerning Molly Russell, who committed suicide at 14. The coroner stated that this act of self-harm was due to depression and the effect of online social content

It has also been revealed that the banning of mobile phones in schools such as Queensferry and Portobello High schools has been a great success from the point of view of teachers and parents in terms of behaviour and class diligence since it was instigated in May.

Moreover, Edinburgh City Council Education Convener James Dalgleish is keen for it to be rolled out in all schools later this year and he expects the City Council to approve this proposal.

The safety and security of our children must be our first priority.

Jim Park , Edinburgh

Plan for future

I see in Dumfries the signs of a once-prosperous town in decline. The two fish and chips shops in the town centre have closed. Numerous other shops stand empty. In large stores and supermarkets, rows of self-service checkouts have replaced staffed tills.

The chip shops do not close because of home deliveries; they closed because rising energy costs, employment regulations, and both local and national taxation that all made it impossible to remain viable.

Large retailers have installed extensive self-service systems not because they prefer machines to people, but because government employment and tax policies make it increasingly uneconomic to employ staff. While machines are expensive to install, their ongoing costs are low. Machines do not pay taxes, while unemployed shop workers face financial hardship and may rely on the welfare system and they don’t pay tax.

Many retail businesses used to employ young people, giving them a start in life, but now employment costs have risen. A new employee requires time before becoming fully productive. In more prosperous times this was a manageable investment; in today’s climate it is seen as an unaffordable risk.

What can Scotland do differently? One option would be to actively seek trading arrangements similar to those granted to Northern Ireland, allowing improved access to European Union markets. Such practical diplomatic initiatives could encourage investment and growth, yet they receive little, if any, serious attention.

Another pressing issue is the growing impact of artificial intelligence. AI will enable many companies to operate with fewer staff unless increased competitiveness drives higher production and demand, hence increased sales. Scotland could take a lead by significantly expanding AI training and making it widely accessible. By lowering operating costs and increasing productivity, businesses could become more competitive and expand output before much of the world fully adapts.

Stronger competitiveness would help protect existing jobs. However, employment costs driven by taxation must be kept under control. Ultimately, governments must live within their means rather than burden future generations with excessive debt and escalating loan repayments.

Ken Carew, Dumfries, Dumfries and Galloway

New infamy?

When President Franklin Roosevelt addressed the US Congress the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, he famously described that period as “a day that will live in infamy”.

He laid particular stress on the fact that the Japanese had attacked while the two countries were deeply engaged in negotiations about the issues that divided them. These negotiations were cynically and dishonestly continued by the Japanese, while simultaneously planning the logistics and execution of their deadly attack, and actually carrying it out.

One wonders what Roosevelt would have made of his successor, Donald Trump.

Robert Cairns, Ceres, Cupar, Fife

Risky business

It's a great pity no one gave Donald Trump a set of the military strategy board game Risk. He could have amused himself with that instead of playing with the real thing.

And he might have noticed that the game stops as soon as the territory is conquered… what do you do with it then? Ahh, what the hell, who cares?

Graham M McLeod, Kinross, Perth and Kinross

No endgame

Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are breaking international law in their illegal bombing of Iran. Thank goodness that Keir Starmer, for once, has shown the backbone to defy them.

As if the assassination of Ayatollah Khomeini and several of his advisors were not enough, far more tragic is the bombing of a girls' school with 165 pupils murdered.

What exactly is this war meant to achieve? Donald Trump seems to have no endgame, apart from more bombing, but he can't bomb Iran into a democracy. Ironically, Trump himself, is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a democrat.

Without doubt, Iran has a vile government, but it's not them who are suffering, but the innocent people themselves. Alarmingly, with Iran fighting back, this war is spreading throughout the tinderbox that is the Middle East. Without doubt, the cynical Netanyahu knows precisely what he is doing, but does Trump?

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

Stand firm

Why won't the Prime Minister stick to what he has decided to do? This lack of will to see things through will eventually bring him and his government down.

Be it benefits or be it foreign affairs, how can anyone trust what he solemnly states on any matter, because as soon as the wings of his party or pressure groups turn the screw, his resolve collapses like a pack of cards. He surely must realise no government of any hue can please everyone, not all of the time. Even opponents admire resolve and strength of purpose. Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill were disliked intensely inside and outside their party and yet admired for their determination at the same time.

I fear it may be too late for Sir Keir – for whom I voted – to alter what appears embedded in his character.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

Desperate tactics

It is very disappointing to see the SNP resorting to misleading the public again with their campaign literature for the Holyrood election. In Edinburgh Central they are making out it is a battle between them and the Tories for the seat, and in Edinburgh Northern, between them and Labour.

As many politically aware people know the battle in Central is between the SNP and the Greens (and in theory Labour, although they are likely to be trying to desperately hang on to Edinburgh Southern and sending all activists there), while in Northern the battle is with the Lib Dems.

The recent Scotsman article on boundary changes “Holyrood 2026: The constituency boundaries that are changing, and why it might affect who wins”, 1 March) has a commentator from Ballot Box Scotland who confirms this. The SNP literature is misleading at the very least, and probably downright dishonest in that they are not telling the voters the truth regarding the main contenders for these two seats, hoping many switch their vote to a party which has no chance of winning. The SNP tried these underhand tactics some years back, falsely claiming Edinburgh West was a battle between the SNP and Tories; at the end of the day the voters saw through those lies and the Lib Dems won comfortably.

Hopefully the electors are not fooled this time by the untruthful literature, and vote for the true opponents. One wonders what else in their literature should not be believed.

It all smacks of desperate tactics from a party that has seen its level of support shrink by a third from its level in 2021.

M Gray, Craigleith, Edinburgh

Indyref idea

There is a simple option Westminster politicians could adopt to trigger IndyRef2 (your report, 27 February).

The first would be for Holyrood to ringfence the £11 billion Barnett additions to the Scottish budget for spending solely in rural Scotland. That would ensure rural Scots in places such as Wick or Stranraer receive the same medical standards as those in Edinburgh or Glasgow.

The second action is that every penny of the £550 billion debt for the 45GW ScotWind project, the £350bn debt to install 25GW of hydrogen-fuelled generation plant, plus the £130bn decarbonisation of Scottish homes project that is underwritten by English consumers is repaid to the Westminster budget.

The problem is a Scottish net zero debt of around £1 trillion is always ignored by both the SNP, BBC Scotland and the media, hence the need to incorporate debt repayments into the mechanism for IndyRef2.

Ian Moir, Castle Douglas, Dumfries & Galloway

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