Tad wrote:

The negatives arguments are pretty bad
It's also obvious that they agree with the positives point and is just grasping for straws in their arguments
Their first argument was decent but they went into way too many points that they themselves cannot prove like how phones makes kids less creative or whatever is a pretty weak argument especially without any sources.
That was their best argument though, the latter rebuttals are all pretty weak.
The affirmatives are the opposite
Their opening argument was pretty obnoxious and doesn't really say anything of true value, but they did a good job thwarting the negatives points.
Overall their argument was good, however they spent the bulk of their argument trying to disprove the negative effects of mobile phones on children that they forgot to actually prove why a child should have a phone.
There are some points here and there about that but they're not exactly what I call strong points.
Overall though, I'd say the affirmatives won this argument.

A tip for both teams in future arguments:
- NEVER say you agree with the other team's points even if you think they're valid points, it makes you look unsure of your own argument and whatever you say after will look less trustworthy.
- Use examples and real life accounts more to persuade people into your argument. It's fine even if it's cherry picked information since the ultimate goal of such a tactic is to make people feel something in such a way that they're more inclined to agree with your points more.

i.e: the negatives can use an example of kids being targeted by malicious people (pedos) online through the use of their phones, or that they can be introduced to gambling at a young age through video game lootboxes etc.

While the affirmatives can discredit the argument by stating that parents are the ones responsible for monitoring their kid's internet activities, you've already made the people reading your argument feel more empathetic to your reasoning.
And since these events often have random people on OT as judges, targeting the judge's sense of justice or empathy will go a long way.
Even in a real life court of law, this tactic is used a lot since a lot of them employ the help of several juries whose decisions will affect the result of the case.
The more people you can make empathizing with your cause, the more likely it is to be successful, even if your argument is slightly lacking in logic.

abraker wrote:

Argh Negative's arguments can be applied to a fucking gameboy and it be no different.

From negative:
2. At this age, their brain is at the height of it's creative thinking phase, giving the child a smartphone might block their creativity because instead of cultivating their talent, they rather play with their smartphones, causing lack of creativity which may lead their generation to it's downfall

Also from negative:
it just seems that you think children are not very tech-savvy, while most of them are, they can bypass the security systems with ease, how?
1. deleting the app itself
2. factory resetting the phone
3. turning it off via parent's phone, while busy, parents usually answer the child's question on everything, so they'll ask about the password and the parents will carelessly answer
4. VPNs
5. use proxy servers
6. a shit ton more

If you think smartphones are making the kid dumber then I don't think the parent should be worried about the kid bypassing parental controls via VPNs and proxy servers of all things.
Both fail to consider less tech illiterate parents like mine who can't figure out or not even aware of parental controls. Which is not irresponsible, but rather a fundamental failure to understand the tech. Both could have made arguments in their favor based on that
🟥 Affirmative: So they are familiar with tech from early age unlike their parents
🟦 Negative: No parental control with such parents

I think Negative's points only make sense with such parents because parental controls and moderation counters all of the points they brought up. Negative's rebuttal that the kid is factory resetting their phone or doing weird hacks to bypass systems considers that a bad thing. Affirmative could have countered that as a sign of good intellect and complex problem solving - me doing that when I was younger is prob what boosted my tech expertise to what it is now.

Negative had a HUGE opportunity to delve into the psychological elements and missed it.

I got no idea what Affirmative's opening argument is supposed to mean, but the rebuttal card they are running with, parental controls, makes more sense that anything Negative has brought up.

I am in favor of 🟥 Affirmative