Also, it is arguably dangerous to not let your teen have a phone in a time when payphones (and to a great extent landlines) no longer exist.
Messaging, calls, maps, notes but no way to take or view images. Marketed simply from a global brand.
Shocker, but those are probably not the people you are going to give a shit about after you leave school.
Of course they do, which is why any sane (imo) parent wouldn't let their child on social media to begin with. Basically feeding your child's developing brain into the dopamine farm, along with the "it's on the internet forever" tax.
Social media is a cancer, not some bizare tool for their social or economic wellbeing or general happiness.
Personally I think no phones until 16 is a good rule.
Cell phone and social media addictions arn't inevitabilities they are choices.
That being said, I can’t imagine myself drawing pictures, or playing boardgames every day with my friends when I was 13. Wouldn’t be happy if my parents didn’t let me play WoW/AoM with my friends. Obviously everyone is different, and I’m in no place to say you’re doing it wrong. Just trying to say how it would suck if I couldn’t do something that all my peers are allowed to do.
This all is the main reason why I support nation-wide social media bans. Would solve the issue if no kids were allowed.
But yeah, I support the school-wide smarthphone bans. Not uncommon in Tokyo.
Social development is very critical during school-age years.
In general around this topic, there is a lot of post hoc rationalisation about choices already made. I've actually got a family member approaching her 30s who has spent the last 2 decades mostly staring at a screen, and has nothing to show for it. So for me the choice is easy, maybe less so for my kids.
It makes an enormous difference for transit.
Knowing when the bus is arriving allows you to decide to walk. Not every places has buses that arrive on time. In Rome a bus can be late by 40 minutes, in which case walking is an option, especially if you are young.
nobody stops you from limiting your kid to bunch of whitelisted apps, for instance whatsapp (it has parental controls as well), duolingo, wikipedia, phone, SMS, calculator, maps, flashlight, sudoku, chess, camera
not exactly sure why you wanna ban cameras
Note that I agree with your point overall. My kids have phones for times when they are away and might need to contact me. I'm just saying it isn't as bad as it sounds.
This isn't very compatible with also teaching children that they can't trust the majority of adults, and that every stranger is a potential danger.
that's not even true for adults. Why would you assume it's true for kids?
People can be wildly reluctant to just hand over a thousand or two dollars worth of equipment to a teenager in a busy street and hope they don't run off with it. Smartphone theft is still a thing.
Who owns a $2,000 phone which isn't insured and should they really be leaving their house?
How about this, I'll pick a random day in your future while you're out doing stuff to show up and break your phone in half. How much is that going to ruin your day?
I take your point though, but I have to wonder who in their right mind would go to times square to ask to borrow a phone. Surely you'd go somewhere less busy.
I remember about 10 or 12 years ago, I'd answer every incoming call. Many were wrong numbers (guy who had the phone number before we was, I kid you not, some sort of wine salesman... people were wanting to order crates of wine). But I'd answer. Now, not so much. I get 15 calls a day some days, all are robots. I screen through voicemail transcription most of the time, unless I recognize the number. Blocking does not good. Numbers in my area code mean nothing... a surprising number of robot calls match my own exchange number (why? what's the point?). For 3 weeks a few months ago, one even matched my own phone number but for the last two digits being transposed, but it wouldn't leave a voicemail.
I no longer have the reasonable ability to answer strange phone numbers. If it were just mean, I'd chalk it up to some idiosyncratic neurosis and be quiet, but my own impression is that everyone else is doing the same thing. We not only tore down the old POTS network, we got rid of all the norms around it.
I have phone numbers in an area code that just seems to get flooded with spam calls. Even our unpublished numbers get them so it doesn't seem like directed attacks, just broadcast spam.
I also have a phone number from a different area and I blocked that area code and everything near it.
The robocallers have found that if the fake caller id given matches the area code and exchange of the number being called, that more of the recipients are willing to answer.
And from a robocaller's perspective, getting folks to answer is critical to being able to transfer them to someone in the scam boiler room for reaping.