100%. My kid is not getting a smartphone until he's ~16 but we're looking at a restricted smart watch right now
(a flip phone would also be acceptable but a watch is physically attached which is ideal for 7 year old).
(a flip phone would also be acceptable but a watch is physically attached which is ideal for 7 year old).
This needs to be a campaign pushed at the school or even county level.
I experienced it myself when I deleted instagram. I realized that certain friendships that had been thriving on that channel didn't flow as well outside it, via texting for example.
So I redownloaded and set a screen time limit and I'm calling that good enough.
I think it's a strain to call that friendship. Communication channels don't matter in case of friendship. I may text, call, email, etc... and it's all good. But it being exclusive to a specific platform is more a social circle or a club as you said.
Let's say I'm in a group of 6 close friends and every year we have 20 poker nights, 4 barbecues, and attend 2 sports events or concerts.
If I decide I don't like poker and I'm not going to attend the poker nights - my friends will still welcome me to the barbecues and sports events. We'd still be friends.
But they're not going to cancel poker night. And if at poker night Bob tells the other guys how proud he is his daughter Jenny has gotten accepted to the fancy college she applied to - nobody's going to summarise that in an e-mail to me.
We'll still be friends - but I'll be spending more time alone, and the social fabric won't be quite as tightly knit.
You don't need to know everything that's happening in your friends' life. They may want to share some news and it'd be ok to not know if you were not present and you haven't heard from other channels. Every now and then, you call them and ask them what's news and how everything's going.
I liked Facebook when it was about getting status updates from a friend. It was blogging for people that did not know how to set up a wordpress website. Then it became...something else.
> We'll still be friends - but I'll be spending more time alone
Social activities are not the same as social platforms. And as for me, I'm not forcing myself to attend events and use platforms I don't like just to not be alone.
In contrast, I was watching gore videos by the time I was 13. I think I turned out ok.
We’ll see if it’s survivorship bias, but personally, I plan to give our daughter Kess most of the freedom she’ll want. She’ll figure it out. The worst situation would be for her to develop feelings for someone and not trust her parents with that info. I suspect restricting smartphone usage is exactly how to end up in that situation.
My kid is college age now and a couple years ahead of the first iPad generation. There is a huge difference in how those kids handle the internet even though they are nearly the same age.
Despite all the rules I've outlined in this thread, I really do believe in giving my kids as much freedom and autonomy as possible. I do not want to manage their time, I do want them to pursue their own interests and grow into their own person.
That being said, developing brains are not adult brains. It is a parent's job to fill in for that immature prefrontal cortex when needed. I can't expect a child to handle the asymmetric onslaught of the attention economy without negative side-effects. Have you seen the manipulative kids content on YouTube? How can a kid escape the recommendations tab with thumbnail after thumbnail specifically designed to draw them in?
So I will work with my kids to learn how use technology without experiencing all the ill-effects. At the end of the day, technology is just one of many tools they will use throughout life -- I don't let them use the bandsaw without help yet either. We'll make adjustments as they get older, but at age 7 things are still pretty hands-on.
We’ve stuck to a middle ground where they are limited to a certain amount of YouTube per day (but have no time limits for Netflix, games, etc). This has worked well so far
It is these kinds of tactics that I want my kids to develop.
The effects of things like gore at 13 are not well understood, I think, but content like this is prevalent, so I see the point in either restricting or allowing it. The definition of "fine" also varies, what's fine for some, is certainly not fine for the other. Also, simply surviving, or turning out to be a degree of fine might not be something that parents want for their children. For example, people overcome trauma all the time, and doing so is great achievement and a source of life satisfaction, but we generally don't cause trauma to achieve this outcome, in fact, most of the time we actively prevent it.
At the end of the day, I think it's mostly just risk, and dealing with it is risk management. It's not that there are any clear paths, many excellent people and outstanding contributions come from unlikely circumstances, and many times even the safest bet fails.
There is a lot my kid is going to do under my nose, getting a smartphone doesn't seem too likely (esp. if he has alternatives like a desktop).
Besides, I am pro dumbphone and don't plan on reading my kids' texts so I don't think these scenarios are applicable.
In the US at least, it is trivial to get a phone plan without being 18 or having an adult sign for it. There is no credit check nor identity check.
Just walk into any Walmart and pick up any one of a dozen prepaid kits. These plans require you to bring your own devices, but you can get a used/unbranded smartphone for under $100 and a plan with data for under $10/month.
It has been this way for at least 10-15 years, if anything post-pay/credit line plans are quite an outdated concept, and mostly used by older generations who are overpaying. Plus T-Mobile specifically have had three data breaches leaking all of their customer's personal information (which they wouldn't even have with a prepaid plan).
I got one at the bodega on the corner for $20. The owner wanted $35, but when I told him I'd pay cash, he took the twenty.
It was in packaging from some carrier in Mexico, but wasn't SIM locked. No problems for the last year.
Not YOU, specifically. I’m speaking in general terms, and somewhat from experience.
When I was in high school we barely had smartphones. A friend of mine had a Windows Mobile 6 device, some kids had Blackberry devices. The iPhone had just come out. Devices were somewhat less personal back then so my experiences may not be practically replicable today, but back in the day I would lend my phone to my friends at the end of the school day if they had been grounded and their phone taken away.
Again, that was almost 20 years ago (dear god), but there’s something to be said for the unchecked determination of a teenager in search of a gadget.
I don’t necessarily disagree with your stance, nor am I criticizing you. For every watchful parental eye, there’s always a bit of sleight of hand. It’s the way of so many of us here, and likely something passed on to the kids of many of us here.
Better hope that watch is water- and shockproof because a healthy 7yo will find many ways to test those features.