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Comment by weimerica | Hacker News Reader

> Sure, now lets try to apply that in practice with a kid angry at you for years.

That's called "being a parent" in my circle? I have a toddler that loves to throw the "you're not my friend!" at me when I cut off the TV and tell her it is time for dinner.

I never had a cell-phone until 17, despite all my friends having had theirs as early as the middle school years. Never mattered much in my case. I didn't have an X-Box 360 with Halo 2 and online gaming despite many of my peers having had that. Not sure why this is being seen as a "must have."

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This may shock you, but things have changed significantly in the past 20 years. Technology is even more necessary for social activity than when we were young. And I remember being the kid at the birthday parties that couldn't play video games, and couldn't participate in conversation at the lunch table because video games were most of what my friends talked about. Made me a permanent second-class citizen in my social group, which sucked. Got to the point where I literally did research on the games (reading strategy guides and such) just to have something to talk about. If the group plays poker, and you aren't allowed because of a moral stance on gambling, that's going to hurt your social opportunities quite substantially.

Also don't make the classic mistake of assuming your kids have all the same variables you did, or can approach the same variables the same way. You have to adapt your experiences to their environment and their personality/needs, often with different outcomes than what you experienced. Most parents are too cowardly for that and mess up their kids with strict enforcement of obsolete rules or letting them run wild with too little structure/guidance.

> Technology is even more necessary for social activity than when we were young.

Oddly, my own children do not have that same issue. In a world of billions, there are no universal claims like this.

just curious, how old are you children? you mentioned having a toddler further up. it makes sense that most social activities are planned by the parents anyway at that age.

I remember things starting to change in middle school. kids started making same-day plans for after school and shooting their parents a quick text to say where they were going. I tried using the school's phone a few times when I was invited, but there wasn't always time to visit the office between classes. that was pretty clunky to do one or more times per week, and I knew I would be in big trouble if I wasn't there when my dad came to pick me up. so I just had to accept that I wouldn't be participating in most of those spontaneous hangouts until I got a phone.

like you said, everyone is different. some kids are charismatic enough that everyone else will work around whatever inconveniences they bring. others are not. I knew my parents had a very firm stance on stuff like phones, so I didn't bother complaining about it much.

Some of my daughter's second grade friends already have personal cell phones.

I am (very) reliably informed that at one nearby school with 6th-8th grade, almost every kid, even the ones from very poor or unstable families, has a cell phone. The tipping point for "over half of my classmates have cell phones" seems to be in the 3rd-5th grade range.

The schools let them carry them around all day, too, which is very confusing to me. They're not supposed to use them, but they do all the time, and teachers/admin are reluctant to confiscate them on more than a "you can have this back at the end of the day" basis (and usually not even that), because parents freak the fuck out if you hold on to their kids' phone overnight, no matter what (and, with limits only way at the extreme end, I really mean "no matter what") they were doing with it.

You know, now that I think about it, I'm not sure where I land on this issue.

On the one hand, kids not being able to get off their phone to the point it impacts their performance at school is worrying.

On the other hand, school is kid prison, and I really can't begrudge any kid who, when having to listen to a teacher for hours on end, takes any opportunity to do something more interesting they find.

It's mostly social media (=bullying), games, or snapping/sharing creep shots of classmates, from what I've heard. To a substantial degree the phones are just amplifying what's already bad about school.

Agreed about the entire enterprise of school, as it exists, kinda being horrible kid-prison to begin with, though.

> It's mostly social media (=bullying), games, or snapping/sharing creep shots of classmates, from what I've heard. To a substantial degree the phones are just amplifying what's already bad about school.

I'm pretty sure there's a selection effect in what you heard (eg you only hear stuff about kids using phones was something goes wrong enough to be headline-worthy).

For instance, I'm no fan of social media, but I wouldn't say it boils down to bullying and nothing else.

I would be annoyed too over that. I do need my kids to have phone, cause that is how we coordinate normally and not having them would be pain in ass for me.

Basically all effective punishment a school might use, if humiliation and corporal punishment are off the table (obviously, they are), ends up inconveniencing the parents. The most a school can directly do to a kid that doesn't inconvenience parents is make them stay in a different room than usual during school hours (in-school detention). Most other options have been (and I'm not arguing they shouldn't have) eliminated. Physical and mental stress for kids aren't allowed, so it's mental and financial stress for parents instead. That's what's in the toolbox.

Doesn't matter in this case, though, since most schools seem to have just declared defeat on the issue.

I am glad my kids teachers were not thinking this way and managed class with less helplesness.

Schools vary a lot. At some it's very easy not to appear, or be, helpless. At others, nearly impossible. Most of the reason for the difference is who's attending, and the attitudes of their parents. Teachers tend to prefer the easy ones—which are also usually the "good" schools, academically—even at lower pay. The differences in stress level, and in how easy or difficult it is to be, or to seem to be, good at one's job, can be extreme.

Parent here, have you asked them if not having a phone has been a problem? Or are you just assuming it isn't because it hasn't been a problem with them for you.

How can you be so sure that they're not being affected socially?

Because they don't tell you about it?

> If the group plays poker, and you aren't allowed because of a moral stance on gambling, that's going to hurt your social opportunities quite substantially.

In this specific case, I dont want them do well in gambling social system. Seen damage it causes in long term.

Generally I agree with you tho. Just gambling group is fine for my kids to not fit in.

These days a cell phone is often pretty much required to reasonably access some essential services.

For a kid? Such as?

Friends.

Well, they said “services”, so I was curious what they meant there, since it sounded like something actually required, like to get signed up for school or something. I guess social media services might be what they were talking about, though.

Oddly, my children have no such issue.

The whole point here is that parents should be able to guide their children into becoming social citizens in today's world - which means online. We're here to discuss parental agency and online privacy for children.

We aren't here to discuss how great your parenting skills are. My ex has a narcissistic personality disorder and ... well. Any time somebody brags about how great a parent they are - especially when it's in the context of controlling children - I automatically think they aren't a great parent. That's probably just me and you probably are a really great parent, but I promise you I'm not the only one here thinking it.

That's tough to guess. Who knows if they're being left out of some events.

In my 13-yr-olds class only 2 people don't have iPhones. Don't under-estimate the social impact of being excluded from that otherwise class-wide group chat.

If you're in the toddler stage you control almost every variable. The game changes once they hit > 8.

You may not be aware but an iPhone isn't required to participate in group chats: MMS and XMPP still exist, there are even bridges between them.

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