For what it's worth, I recall reading that Bill Gates didn't allow his children to have smartphones until they were like 13. Not that he's a model of perfect parenting but just an interesting example given his relationship to technology. I'm not convinced that an 8 year old who is interested in web development will suffer from not having the device--there's a million other things they could be learning/doing. In fact I would hypothesize that the smartphone would actually cause a young brain to grow into the habit of having a miniscule attention span.