- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
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Please don’t give kids smartphones period. A smart watch is far less addictive and just as valuable to parents and kids (parents can track location, kids can still make phone calls and txt.) other suggestions are a dumb phone (think t9 txting), or just let them go phoneless.
Don’t they require smart phones to work though? All the ones I have had are all just BT devices which require a phone to do anything beyond tell the time
There are several cellular capable watches.
My Samsung watch works without a phone on Google Fi network. Watches get a free line.
I don’t think going phoneless would be a great idea because emergencies happen and people need to communicate but society would probably be better if kids weren’t glued to smartphone apps and social media from a young age. The smart watch or dumb phone idea makes sense to me though.
The emergency argument can be managed by not giving kids a smart phone with internet aceess. Easy
Or just give them a dumb phone.
Those watches with tracking built in are certainly popular in my area, but I absolutely refuse to use it. Kidnapping just isn’t a thing (the majority of kidnappings is by a trusted family member/friend), and I don’t think kids should get accustomed to someone constantly looking over their shoulder. I’ve gotten my kids “smart” watches (fun Minecraft watches with built-in games and whatnot), and there’s no tracking or internet access whatsoever.
If kids need to call, they can ask a trusted adult to borrow a phone. If I trust my kid, they can borrow my spare. Kids don’t need a phone of their own until they can at least get around on their own (e.g. driver’s license or parental permission to leave the neighborhood on their own), and for me, that’s like 14yo. I have a 10yo, and there’s no way I’m giving them a phone now or in the next year. They’re really responsible, but they don’t need it at all.
Curious, what smart(-ish) watches did you get? Product recommendations appropriate in this discussion imho
Garmin makes watches specifically for kids and seem to have a decent privacy policy.
Anyone have a recommendation for a decent kids smartwatch with cell service? I got my son a Garmin Bounce and the text and the service sucked so we returned it.
You can find older Apple Watches for fairly cheap, I paid 10 bucks a month on T-Mobile for just the watch plan.
You would need to have an iPhone in order to manage it but you can manage a watch for a kid that way. They have school mode for them so it just acts as a watch with emergency contact action at school.
Scrolling to find out what “EE” is… I can’t find anything. Can someone fill me in?
EE (formerly Everything Everywhere) is a British mobile network operator, internet service provider and a brand of BT Consumer, a division of BT Group. Supposedly the #1 network in the UK similar to Verizon in the US.
Equine Enchephalitis
Erectile Encumbrance
Electronics Enonymous.
Electrical Engineers.
Get the kids a dumb phone instead. Calls and texts are more than enough in an emergency
When I went to price it out at the store, the line for a dumb phone was going to cost $30/mo more than a smart phone. It was dumb.
So get them a smartphone plan and slap the SIM in their dumbphone?
I’m in the US and can get a simple plan for $6/month for no data, 300 minutes, and unlimited texting. Unlimited minutes is $8. There’s no contract, so this isn’t some kind of family deal, this is just the regular price at Tello for a single line.
I personally have 1GB and 300 min for $7/month.
If the new dumb phones also came with Google Family Link for tracking then it would be a win. But they don’t. As a parent, having the ability to track my kids when I know they’re heading to or from somewhere is a big deal. And no, it’s not an issue of trust.
You definitely see a difference in children who are regularly given phones to keep them occupied. They’re just so much more hyper active. I know a lot of teachers have been complaining about phone use in the classrooms. In Canada they just started rolling back against rules saying teachers can’t confiscate phones.
Is it the phone, or the social media? The article only really mentions social media as the real issue.
Subsequently, does that mean social media on a computer is 100% A-OK? (this is a mobile phone carrier so it makes sense that they’d only focus on phones)
The article specifically mentions smartphones. Which smartphone can’t access social media?
Computer is not necessarily “A-OK” but theyre far less likely to carry them around and be on them all day.
All smartphones can access social media. But they also have some really good (mostly intuitive) parental controls. So if you don’t want you kid on Facebook just block it.
What does it matter if the child is on a phone all day va on a computer all day? Sure you can’t really do that in class, but what about the other 16 hours of the day?
But they also have some really good (mostly intuitive) parental controls. So if you don’t want you kid on Facebook just block it.
Fair point, I don’t know anything about that.
What does it matter if the child is on a phone all day va on a computer all day?
You’re…joking, right? I just explained that in the comment you just replied to.
This is false information. You can limit what apps they have with safeguards with many different services. Google family, Samsung family share and Microsoft family all have limited app options where you can let through whatever you think is good enough. You can also only allow a certain amount of hours for each app on a daily basis. There are so many safeguards if you look it’s not difficult.
That’s what they just said.
Both.
My kids are around that age and it’s a real struggle when all of their friends have one.
There is a growing tide of data suggesting the fight is worth it, but understand it is a serious struggle.
Much like trying to get kids to eat healthy when they are surrounded by so much awful food in the US.
Too bad?
Yup. All my friends had cell phones and I was pretty much the only one who didn’t. That kind of sucked, but my friends were cool and worked around it.
If their friends won’t accommodate them, well, they’ve shown their true colors and perhaps they should find some better friends. Having a phone isn’t going to fix crappy friends.
I think there were some social blunders and connections missed because I got a decent phone later than my peers.
I got my first basic phone (a phone which barely functioned and regularly crashed doing basic things) at 16 back in 2011(?) when many in my class had gotten a basic phone by 2008. By 2010, pretty much everyone had at least a basic phone, many had smart phones.
I wouldn’t write this off as an irrelevant issue in a world where so much connection is done through phones (even if you personally don’t believe you were all that affected). I do think my parents decision to delay giving their shy-ish child living in a rural area a good phone (solely because they didn’t have one when they were kids) was a bad decision.
Actually being able to keep up with people between classes, discuss homework, to have gotten some pretty girls numbers earlier on, etc … that could’ve really changed my high school and middle school (or at least jr high) experience for the better.
I certainly don’t know your situation or anything, so apologies if this comes off as tone-deaf.
And yeah, I completely appreciate that a lot of communication happens through phones. However, most of that communication is a distraction, and a lot of it is damaging. If you have a phone but nobody talks to you, that’s worse than if you don’t have a phone at all. Likewise, if you have a phone and use it responsibly, you’ll likely get called out for “ignoring” people’s messages because so many people expect a ridiculous level of engagement these days.
Calls and texts aren’t really a thing any more, and most people communicate through apps instead. That means that even without a phone, there’s a pretty good chance you can still be included if you have access to a computer at home. I grew up in a weird transition where people moved from IM to SMS, because IM just didn’t work yet on phones yet everyone had phones. We’re seeing the opposite trend these days, where now that most people have massive data plans, apps are becoming king again.
So in my mind, this means that not providing a phone doesn’t cut them off, it just delays communication. That means they’ll have less of a chance to become addicted to all the SM BS, while still being able to be included in things. I think that’s a healthy boundary to set.
That said, absolutely none of my friends communication during HS or my communication in college was productive. We didn’t “discuss homework” or anything related to school, we merely arranged hangouts and flirted, with a little gossip to round things out. I highly doubt things have changed much, because that’s just what kids do. When I was young, cell phones weren’t a thing, and my sister spent hours on the phone talking about nonsense with her friends. That’s just how teenagers work, if they’re talking to friends, they’re not talking about school work.
That said, I’ll certainly be paying attention as my kids get older. My oldest is around 10, and they’re definitely too young for a phone (though I’m debating giving them their own PC). I have nephews and nieces who are a few years older, and I can roughly see which ones I’d be comfortable giving access to a phone, and which I’m not, and that point seems to be around 14yo. But whether I give my kids one depends on how much I trust them. We’ll probably test drive a loaner phone in a year or two before deciding if they should have their own phone.
Sorry for the late reply…
Calls and texts aren’t really a thing any more, and most people communicate through apps instead. That means that even without a phone, there’s a pretty good chance you can still be included if you have access to a computer at home.
I find this varies a lot within different social groups … some people I know use different apps some people don’t use anything other than SMS/iMessage and/or maybe Facebook messenger.
My friends and I definitely communicated with Skype and things like that. I just never really had the chance to “grow my social network” if you will as a younger teen. Like summer 2009 I did a summer gym thing (my school let students take gym in the summer before high school for the high school PE credits and lots of kids did) … if I had a cell phone there’s a good chance I might have made connections with kids that had interests other than “get on the computer and play video games (and associated ‘nerdy’ interests).”
So in my mind, this means that not providing a phone doesn’t cut them off, it just delays communication. That means they’ll have less of a chance to become addicted to all the SM BS, while still being able to be included in things. I think that’s a healthy boundary to set.
That could be fair; it just kind of depends on what their peers are doing. I’d also caution against artificially creating hard barriers that won’t be for them later in life. My parents didn’t lock the fridge they just said we couldn’t have ice cream more than one time a week. It was ultimately on us to be able to honor that agreement.
Of course that wasn’t a bullet proof “solution”, I’m sure we snuck some ice cream here or there … and I’m sure we got caught at least one. But, IMO that’s just part of being a kid and a couple of bowls of ice cream when we broke the rule didn’t hurt anything, the rule still did its job (keeping our diets tilted towards good).
That said, absolutely none of my friends communication during HS or my communication in college was productive. We didn’t “discuss homework” or anything related to school, we merely arranged hangouts and flirted, with a little gossip to round things out. I highly doubt things have changed much, because that’s just what kids do. When I was young, cell phones weren’t a thing, and my sister spent hours on the phone talking about nonsense with her friends. That’s just how teenagers work, if they’re talking to friends, they’re not talking about school work.
I think this varies too. Of what I remember of college, sure the vast majority of stuff was non-school communication. However, there definitely was communication over projects (especially if I was doing something with friends vs random people in class).
That said, I’ll certainly be paying attention as my kids get older.
I think this is the biggest thing. Like, nobody can tell you how to parent your kid and I’m not trying to tell you what’s right. I’m just saying, my parents took a hard line stance on this, based on some made up rules about what I should or shouldn’t have that was way different than what nearly every other parent was doing. I didn’t have the gumption (arguably due to a mostly unrelated, hidden, depression that my parents attributed entirely to “teenage angst”) to advocate for that access or ask for help and largely just accepted my situation as the best I was going to get.
Well. I don’t know how old you are. When I was in school we only had dumbphones. And not having a cell phone at all sucked LOL. Kids should absolutely be able to call and text, if no reason other than emergencies. Just not spend all day on socials.
Well, I grew up before smart phones were a thing, but dumb phones were absolutely a thing (the “cool” kids had the Motorola Razer, if that helps).
And yeah, not having a phone sucked. But I was able to bum a phone off my friends, and I carried some coins in case I needed to use a pay phone (another hint at my age).
Pay phones aren’t really a thing anymore, but kids can absolutely ask a trusted adult (e.g. a teacher) to use their phone in an emergency. My kids also know our phone numbers, our address, and rough directions to get home, so if there’s a true emergency, they can get home (e.g. get a police officer to give them a lift). We ride bikes in our neighborhood frequently enough that they can probably give turn by turn directions once they’re within a few blocks of our house. But the chances of that actually happening are so remote it’s really not worth planning for. We only take our kids to birthday parties (we meet the parents when we drop them off), school activities (we know their teachers), or friends houses, and we let them go on their own to the local parks. We give them a time to come home, and if they don’t come home when expected, they lose their privilege to go out on their own for a bit.
So I’m not concerned at all about emergencies, and I think parents are way too worried about it. If I don’t trust my kid on their own somewhere, a phone isn’t going to make me feel more comfortable. In my eyes, a phone is a privilege, and privileges are earned and can absolutely be revoked.
I’ll probably give my kids phones before they leave the house, but not until they earn that trust, and also not before they actually need one. My current target is 14yo w/ a dumb phone, and 16yo w/ a smart phone (for directions). Once I’ve given them a phone, I’ll trust them completely with it (no tracking) until they violate my trust, at which point they’ll lose it. That’s how I’d prefer to be treated as a kid, so that’s how I’ll treat them.
What age is a good age to give them one?
No age. It’s just especially damaging for young people.
When they need one. And no, that’s not when they say they need one, but when you decide they need one.
I’m planning on having a loaner phone when my kids are teenagers that they can share. It’ll stay home unless they leave the house, and they’ll be limited to how much time they can spend on it. If they earn my trust, maybe they’ll get their own (again, subject to limitations). I don’t see a reason why they’d need one before they can drive, but I’ll play it by ear.
That said, I refuse to do any sort of tracking on their devices. If I trust them with a phone, I’ll respect their privacy with it. If they violate my trust, they lose the phone. If they don’t like it, they’re free to get their own once they’re 18, and not a day before.
Yikes.
Yes, don’t do it. It’s a bad idea. Phones are addicting and one day when we all realize this, we will have laws to prevent it.
EE is advising parents that children under 11 should be given old-fashioned brick or “dumb” phones that only allow them to call or text instead.
That sounds ridiculous. An 11-year-old is, what, a fifth-grader in the US?
If they have access to a computer or something in addition to their phone, okay, maybe. But for a lot of young people in 2024, their smartphone is their sophisticated electronic device. Maybe they tack on a keyboard or whatnot. But take that away, and they don’t have a computer to use. A computer is just too essential of a tool to not let someone learn.
Kids used to veg out in front of the TV, where material is generally not all that fantastic and the device is noninteractive. I think that it’s great that smartphones are replacing that.
I was programming when I was in first grade. I was doing computer graphics and word processing somewhere around there. Those are important skillsets to have. I made use of those. You want kids to pick those up. You do not want to push those back. I’d get a computer of whatever form into their hands at the earliest point that they can avoid destroying it.
If your concern is that you want to restrict access to pornography or something, okay, fine, whatever, set up content filtering. I think that they’re probably going to get at it anyway. But that does not entail not permitting access to the computing device. That’s a restriction on access to the Internet.
In May this year, MPs on the education committee urged the government to consider a total ban on smartphones for the under-16s and a statutory ban on mobile-phone use in schools as part of a crackdown on screen time for children.
That’d be, what, up to high school before you have one? And that’s not “I have parents who want that”, but outright “the government doesn’t let anyone do that”.
Wikipedia. Google Maps. The store of knowledge available from search engines. I use those all the time. You want to cut them off from that?
I read and certainly write way more text than I did in the pre-Internet era. Do you want kids reading and writing less?
I mean, I’m just boggled.
I was programming when I was in first grade. I was doing computer graphics and word processing somewhere around there. Those are important skillsets to have. I made use of those. You want kids to pick those up. You do not want to push those back. I’d get a computer of whatever form into their hands at the earliest point that they can avoid destroying it.
Most kids aren’t improving their skillsets. They definitely aren’t programming on cell phones. I am a programmer. I have code editors that I paid for on my phone at all times. I’ve used them like 5 times at most.
Social media and misinformation is damaging for everyone but more so for children. Social media is what kids are mostly doing.
I agree that there can positives for using a cell phone. Their are educational software but most kids aren’t doing that.
Smartphones won’t help you learn how computers work. They are dumbed down devices, designed to keep you on social media while maximizing exposure to ads. These things are way worse than TVs.
Wikipedia. Google Maps. The store of knowledge available from search engines. I use those all the time. You want to cut them off from that?
That’s a bit overdramatic. Most kids have a laptop for schoolwork these days. I personally didn’t get a smartphone until I started university, got a Samsung S7 then. I had no issues accessing any of those sources. These days I have a comp sci masters degree, so it definitely didn’t “stunt” me in any way.
I read and certainly write way more text than I did in the pre-Internet era. Do you want kids reading and writing less?
Kids reading and writing skills appear to have been declining ever since the rise of the smartphone, so I doubt they’re reading anything of sufficient quality to hone those skills a bit.
Schools here have recently mostly banned smartphones, and the kids seem happier for it and their grades and concentration in school is improving. Sound like positives to me.
Agree with your points on having a pocked PC to hack with, the issue here is then with mobile and their OS makers which mindbogglingly have omitted to design a working and hardly hackable “children account mode”, since what is damaging here is not what they can fiddle within their devices, nor certainly what they can read from wikipedia, but rather the unfiltered and unaccountable exposure to a profiling oriented social media storm which even adults fatigue to cope with.
I’m sure it isn’t unheard of OSes having a hardware locked managed kiosk mode, because that is what smartphones basically need.
set up content filtering
Then kids will just work around it.
I personally refuse to set up content filtering. My state passed a law requiring ID to view porn and use SM, and I’m willing to set up a VPN on my WiFi to work around that because I detest content filtering. I’d much rather have zero filtering and track what websites are visited so I can react appropriately (i.e. if the kid is watching porn, they probably need some proper sex ed and something to occupy their time).
That’s a restriction on access to the Internet.
Sure, and I’m 100% willing to take that away from them.
My policy is, if I trust you, I trust you to not be supervised. If I don’t trust you, I don’t trust you at all. So either you get complete access, or you get no access.
That’s how I’m planning to handle phones as well. They’ll get a loaner phone when they need it, and if they earn my trust with that, they’ll get their own. If they violate my trust, they lose the phone, including the loaner. Simple as that.
the government doesn’t let anyone do that
Yeah, that’s not cool at all, the government shouldn’t tell me how I can raise my kids.
That said, kids can still access the internet at school and at libraries, just like I did as a kid. Or they can ask to borrow the family computer. If I choose to restrict my child’s access to the internet, that should 100% be my prerogative, as should me deciding to give my child a smart phone.
Hey kid, you finished your vegetables and cleaned your room, here’s the car keys. Right pedal is gas and… ah, you’ll figure it out. Be home by 10.
Also lol @ family computer.
Don’t give them a phone until they are prepared to see everything the Internet has. Kids can be smart and will find ways around the blocks you put in place.
Lucky them. I wish I didn’t need one. It’s a window to other people’s problems.
deleted by creator
“Age restriction should be 25. lmao”
Social media has rekd us all regardless of age.
Also, did me deleting my comment not federate for you? Is it still up for you?
it should have been deleted before you had time to comment in response.
Make parents less entitled. Problem solved.
