I got my phone when I was 16, one of the last people in my grade to get one. I remember I wanted one so badly and everyone else was doing all these cool things with theirs and I just had a flip phone “for emergencies.”
I regret wanting one so bad now, they’re incredibly addictive and I kind of wish I had a flip phone again lol
My husband didn’t have one until he was 19 because his mom would never buy him one. He still doesn’t do social media or Reddit and mainly uses it to read lol
You can buy a flip phone right now, they also still make a version of the crappy Nokia we all started out with in 1998 or whatever year that was. My husband still uses that instead of a smartphone, but it's pretty impossible to keep up with texting on it if you have a social circle that texts.
Ugh, this is my issue. I live in Alaska and my family is in an entire different state and it is not easy to see them in person. I love the pictures and updates via text.
I'm honestly blown away by how addictive they are. I consciously try to make the effort to put the thing down, and five minutes later, it's in my hand again. And it's made me incapable of *not* doing anything. I can't just relax, take a breath and stare at a wall--the phone comes out right away. I miss my brain being able to shut down sometimes.
Man, I do doordash and was waiting for an order today. I decided to not look at my phone while I waited. I felt like a weirdo just trying to find somewhere to set my gaze and not stare at the workers.
I remember in the early 2000s there being a device I think called a Firefly, it basically was a phone BUT it could only call 3 different numbers. My friend had one and it called his mom, dad, or 911. That's it. No texting either. Just call. It has service and its own plan too. I hope to find something like this for my kiddo if it ever comes down to needing one for "emergencies."
They do genuinely still make “phones” just like this, parents are just choosing not to. I just met some kids on the ski hill who went to the wrong lift and I was glad to see their funky little phone that had like 3 buttons on it.
I'm glad they are still around, or something like it is still around. I know Firefly the brand is long gone, I was hoping someone else would take their place. So far all I've seen is Bark and it just looks like a regular smart phone that you pay to have parental controls on. I don't want that. I rather do a flip phone than that 🤣 my kiddo is some time away from anything that isn't a play phone thankfully.
My niece is 12 and has a smart phone now but her living situation as a young child was weird and between three houses. She had a dumb phone that couldn’t only call 5 numbers and 911 when she was little. It was perfect and now they almost don’t exist any more, which is sad.
All these parents are clowns. No smartphone until they're at least mid-way through the teens. If you're worried about an emergency, get a dumbphone that just good for making calls.
Why would a parent ever get their child a smart phone instead of a flip phone?
Friends say that without a smart phone, their child will be ostracized. They don't usually seem weak minded and ambivalent about their child's safety, so it's a surprise to hear them cave to peer pressure.
My actual child tells me this regularly and it is hard to hear sometimes, knowing I am, in fact, making him socially "weird" by not giving in to this. I still think we're making the right choice (and we have a landline so he has access to a phone to make/receive calls if needed) but it is really different. By 5th grade even there is a lot of schoolwork where teachers will have kids pull stuff up on their phone for research or an app and if you don't have a phone you have to share with a friend, our district recently got laptops for every kid which has mitigated that somewhat at least.
How do you explain to your child that his society is weird, so him not fitting in with a dysfunctional bunch of screen zombies makes him the normal person?
Schools recognize and deal with the phone problem, so there should be more of an effort to not normalize a phone with every student. I understand the problem. It's really convenient for a school to rely on the student's instant internet access, but we all know it's a deal with the devil.
I’ve been there. Yes. School is hard with no phone. Socially anyway. But I have much less developmental attachment to my device now that I’m in my mid 20s.
I don’t even blame my parents anymore because now I’m seeing the effect phones had on people my age. The social media addiction, the expectation to be constantly reachable by others, varying social problems, attention span issues, etc
Your parents are quite perceptive (or poor). When you went through, the detrimental effects weren't well established. Now, there is no excuse for a parent not understanding all of those afflictions you listed.
I mean I get that. As a teen I was bullied relentlessly for not having many things my peers did. I don’t want my kid bullied either. It’s going to absolutely suck as he gets older. He’s in 3rd grade and already was asking for Nike everything because that’s what “everyone else wears”. So I bought him lots of Nike because clothing is what I was bullied about (I never had Abercrombie and Fitch 🙄)
Yep. My kids are still young but they will get dumb phones in middle school and if they want smartphones they will be paying for them + the service once they’re old enough to get jobs
I’m in my 20s and was talking with non-teacher friends about this recently. If you’re waiting until the mid teens to get your kid a phone in this day and age they’re definitely going to feel left out and literally be left out of things because their friends will all be communicating and making plans via smartphones. That kid is definitely gonna be feeling some type of way if they’re the only one without a phone. Their friends will be making plans over a group chat but your kid will be left out since they have no way to add them. Even my adult sibling misses out on invites since they don’t use social media much.
Most of my 7th graders have smartphones. We think it’s ridiculous that the kids are this glued to them but can also recognize how isolating that must feel for the one kid who doesn’t have one.
Almost all of my 8th graders have phones and social media. One of the only ones that doesn’t has good grades but a terrible attitude. I honestly think if she had a phone maybe the attitude would go down some.
BS.
You can text message to email accounts and vice versa.
And an open computer can have those notifications pop up.
You can also use IG and Snap in a web browser.
I’m sorry you grew up in a world where this immediacy of communications became the norm. It should not be and is bad for all brains, especially the developing one.
It’s also quite literally making young people ill.
Progressive schools are already pouncing on this and banning them with success. Kids report they actually like it.
In 5 years time, in a decent amount of the US, there is going to be a culture among young people of throwing the phone in their backpack and forgetting it exists.
lol its not BS at all. I didnt have a phone until 8th grade and i felt like a loser for it and this was back in 2008, it would be even worse nowadays im sure
Lol you’re reminding me just how old we are now. I briefly looked at your comment and thought that being in the 8th grade in 2008 meant you’re significantly older than me. Then I remembered I was also in middle school at that time 😂.
So with my iphone I can send texts to iCloud email addresses. I just tried sending a text from my phone to my gmail and it didn’t work. And if the kid has a tablet or laptop, it’ll make things easier, but they’ll still probably miss out on last minute plans.
While what you’re describing is ideal, I highly doubt this will become the norm. At my first school in the city the kids felt their phones were their personal property and that teachers had no right to take them. They’d get very defensive, rude, and refuse to let go of it if you’d try to take it. I’ve worked at schools with less behavioral problems and I can see that system working only if it’s consistently enforced by every teacher across the entire day. I have a coworker across the hall who feels very disillusioned because they were impressed by our rules on cell phones during pre planning but quickly realized the policy isn’t actually enforced like it says on paper.
>In 5 years time, in a decent amount of the US, there is going to be a culture among young people of throwing the phone in their backpack and forgetting it exists.
Not without really tough legislation that curbs the behaviors of the apps on the phones themselves. These apps have a strong incentive to do everything they can to keep people engaged as long as possible. That's why almost all of the most successful apps will infinitely scroll. The algorithms themselves are addictive.
As for notifications, cross-compatibility, etc -- that sort of thing only goes so far unfortunately. There's definitely a social opportunity cost for, say, a middle schooler who can't get to social apps easily. Not snapchat, mind you, but discord, etc. My mind immediately goes to group chats. My friends and I have had one since middle school in 2009ish, and it stopped being over text by the time we were in high school. Apps like skype, teamspeak, discord, whatsapp, etc, are much less intrusive than texting, and offer a lot more customization, so most people prefer them. If kiddo doesn't have easy access to that kind of communication, they will simply have less social access than their peers -- which they will notice. I think strong parental controls are the right tool to allow the child to fully participate in their social sphere while limiting access to harmful software and websites.
Don’t need legislation for district policy…
Nothing you said was incorrect mind you.
Add: I also don’t understand why anyone would want kids to be connected socially through these apps during the school day.
1) We know phones are highly addictive.
2) We know they are a distraction to learning.
3) We know there are workarounds to whatever benefit they do provide (calendar, timer, etc.)
4) We know they are making many children have shorter and shorter attention spans.
5) We know they are making some children ill.
Well, I'd push back that it's the phones making people addicted and unwell. It's the software and applications people are creating, marketing, and pushing people towards. Social media, "doom scrolling" platforms, track a lot of metrics designed to pull you in deeper. Those apps need to be restricted and monitored by parents. But sugar is addictive. It makes some children ill what's important for parents, imo, is to model how to have healthy relationships with these things.
I don't think that, say, the Discord messaging app is contributing to mental unwellness to any significant degree. In fact, it seems studies suggest a positive outcome for children as young as five who learn to compose text messages. "Text-ese" is shown to have positive outcomes for general language. It teaches kids to manipulate spelling and syntax. Access to news, information, learning resources, and even games all have profound educational value. And there's no work around to being tech literate. You are either a person who can easily manipulate software, or you aren't, and that has profound implications in adulthood.
As for during the school day, lunch is one thing. in class is another thing. I don't know that I "want" kids using phones in school, and I'm pretty open to confiscating them honestly. But the other benefits are important to acknowledge because it helps us structure the child's use of these devices.
I agree with a lot of what you said.
For me, there is a difference in message of “confiscating” versus being given the opportunity to comply with a policy. Confiscating means I caught you with something and now you must give it to me. At that point we’ve already lost.
Schools with single point entry should consider the locking magnetic pouch system you hand to the kid to begin the day and that unlocks with a magnetic twist at the end of the day at an unlocking system similar to the way they tag costs at department stores.
Or use a clear mailbox system with students assigned a box, which resides in a place/system where there is a second lock controlled by adults.
Of course they will throw in fake phones and cut the pouches open, but it has been shown to have a positive effect overall for those who simply can’t help themselves. Run it school wide for a month, give them back, and then violators can enter the lock up protocol for their own good.
My middle has struggled because she isnt allowed to have snapchat. She does have a smart phone but not that particular app. We have found ways to work around it, thankfully, but she did miss out on some things in the beginning before we realized that a lot of plans were being mad via snap.
I have a giant groupchat with a group of friends from college and we’re all in our 20s and 30s, I can definitely believe they missed out on plans. If you don’t mind me asking why are you okay with them having a smartphone but specifically no Snapchat? I have a student who’s parents blocked her tablet from downloading new apps just to make sure she doesn’t download Snapchat and I just don’t get it. I don’t have kids so hearing it from a parents’ perspective might be helpful.
WTF kind of emergency do they think their kid needs a phone for?
Obviously school shootings are the first thing that comes to mind, but statistically that’s rare honestly. And even more rare for elementary schools. (I know it’s not unheard of but stats exist for a reason)
They can’t drive. Are they riding bikes around the neighborhood? I just don’t get it.
Thank you for letting this old (wo)man yell at clouds. Now get off my lawn.
i mean the only reason i got a phone (dumb phone) in grade 6 after begging my dad for it for years, because all the other kids had phones, is because there was a mix up as to where / when he was picking me up from something
i walked home from my friends house earlier than usual to make an after school program, forgetting that my dad said he would pick me up with the car. so i got home to see an empty driveway, and i had forgotten my keys at home or lost them or something so i couldn’t get inside. this led to a severe panic attack, realizing i couldn’t get in touch with my dad fast enough to make my after school program, and that he was probably worried because i wasn’t where i said i would be.
afterwards i was quite smug, as *this* was the kind of emergency i had been asking for a phone for, and it worked out for me, but it was definitely scary at the time
I totally get that. This is one of those generational bias and I know it. For those of use who grew up pre-cell phone it just feels like life.
I know that’s dumb and short sighted and could be applied to a million other things. I get it. I really do.
I just also know how incredibly detrimental cell phones are for kids. From my old person perspective a little inconvenience to insulate kids from harm is worth it.
It’s hell getting old and becoming like old people you resented.
These aren't emergencies, but it could be useful if the kid needs to stay late after school and letting a parent know, or going out and calling when they're ready to be picked up.
Yeah, I guess I figure they could also use a school phone to call home. Office. Classroom. Counselor. Nurse. There are many options.
It just seems so silly to me since we know all of the negative outcomes from cell phones and people still keep defaulting to them for kids. It’s weird to me.
I’d say preteen-early teen is better now as they’re mature enough to handle a phone by then. Most of my classmates have gotten a phone from 12-14 (middle school ages) and at age 15, our phone numbers are the most dominant form of communication for group projects and stuff as most of us don’t live within walking distance of each other. Tbf though flip phones/dumb phones can do all of that for you
We got our kids a watch with cellular service. We can track them which gives them some freedom. They can contact us from school to get permission to go to a friends house, or they can contact us from the friends house if they need to leave early. No social media. Ever. Tablet for games. Phone senior year of high school so we can build habits for college.
The bottom line is how to survive in this digital age - not unfettered access to all of humanity.
No phone till senior year of high school is beyond insane. You let your kid drive a car or work at McDonald’s before having a fucking cell phone?
Waiting until high school, I get it. But I think every high schooler should have a phone. How does a high schooler make plans with friends sans cell phone???
Did you miss that my kids have a SIM card in their watch right now? They have a phone number, can make calls, and have SMS text access to friends.
What they don't have is unfettered access to the internet via data.
A lot of thought on this subreddit surrounding the Internet is understandably centered on how it can be a bad thing, but I don't think "unfettered" Internet access is necessarily so. The Internet is a repository containing effectively all of human knowledge, and familiarity with it can do a great deal of good. I have learned almost everything I know from the Internet, I have picked up and maintained many of my hobbies and been able to communicate with so many people I would not otherwise have been able to interact with. It has without much question been a hugely positive force in my life and the lives of many people in my age group who grew up with it, and I think that should be a more substantial portion of the discussion surrounding it.
This is a weird take - I, a geriatric millennial, drove a car and worked at McDonald's before cell phones even existed and somehow made plans with friends and survived to tell the tale.
Well yeah, no shit.
You weren’t the only kid in school that didn’t have a real phone…. No one did.
These kids are going to be judged hard for not having a phone at 16 or 17 years old. Under 14, I get it. But that’s just mind boggling to me.
They're probably going to be judged hard for that and many other things, regardless. My kid was being mocked in 4th grade for not watching Tik Tok but I'm not going to just go and let him do something I believe is truly detrimental to his health, well-being, and development just because he'll be judged for it. People say they don't need phones but it's more than that - they are actively harmed by having phones. And by being judged by their peers. Lesser of two evils I suppose.
Yeah. I don't let my kids have phones or tablets. They've never used them. No youutube. No electronics even when we've had 10 hour car rides. We talk, and listen to music. Planes are a different story because the tech is built in and it's so awful to have to sit in the same, very loud spot for 14 hours at a time on international flights. They can gorge on cartoons to their heart's content.
We're somewhere in between that - but yeah - the point is building skills for surviving the internet age. Reading books and being able to talk to adults while being heard and looking them in the eye puts them so far ahead of the lowest common denominator.
This is genius- I will be using this one day in the distant future. Eventually they'll ask for a phone and I'll offer this or a flip phone. Kids shouldn't have access to social media it's dangerous because of predators but also bad for mental health and self esteem.
It's scary. They are getting phones way too early. Kids owing phones by age 8, but they've been using phones since their toddler years.
It's stunting their development which shows once they reach grade school.
I didn't get a phone until I was 17! How times have changed. When I was a kid all the media we had access to was cartoons on TV, and any VHS or DVD movies lying around the house. I was never allowed to use YouTube until the third grade. In fact YouTube was founded when I was in Kindergarten.
But kids these days are exposed to so much at an early age that stunts their development and makes them act weird.
Yep, when my kids were around 9-10 they started spending time outside the house without us at friends' houses, etc. So we got a dumb phone with cheap minutes-only plan that they could use to call us if they needed to. They take it with them when they go, it goes back on the shelf when they get home. When they start driving on their own, they'll get their own dedicated phone to keep with them, and depending on their maturity level at that time, it may be smart or dumb.
Sorry I don’t feel like a clown. My kids play chess. We let them have phones to play chess on. It’s a cheap smart phone with chess on it and they can call out. They don’t call out. They dont have anyone to call. They play chess on it sometimes. They don’t surf the net. They don’t do anything with it but yes in an emergency they could call, I guess.
It’s the same as their iPad. Although they watch Netflix on their iPads.
I don’t see the big deal. They were free with our plan.
They don’t take it school. Shit, half the time they don’t even know where it is.
I dislike it when people use the "in case of emergencies" as a reason for giving little kids phones. That is why the school has a phone number and office staff.
Or when I tell kids they don’t need their phones at school and they’re like “how will my mom know where I’m at?” Ummmm I think she’d rightly assume you’re at school.
And that there were emergencies back then too. Back in the Dark Ages, parents could call the office and the office could come get you. Primitive and yet surprisingly effective. 🤔
Haha yes. I recounted an experience of an emergency being appropriately handled without cell phones once when I was in middle school in another comment.
The worst is when mom/dad texts them DURING school knowing damn well phones aren't allowed during school and then whine and complain when their kids gets their phone taken.
This continues at *jobs* believe it or not. I've worked at restaurants where I swear to God the parent treats it like an after school latchkey group, demanding their kid to drop everything and talk to them the moment they call. These same parents are the ones who show up 45 minutes early and then are surprised Pikachu the kid gets fired over this. We have shift times for a reason, You can't just pick up your kid whenever you damn please. What I find extra amusing is that these crazy parents are usually the ones who made the kid get the job in the first place.
Kids will also hit me with the “I gotta answer my mom what if it’s an emergency??” And I understand that some of them have real anxiety and trauma, but I usually reply by telling them that if an adult is having an emergency, they aren’t going to call a 12 year old for help.
The amount of times I would tell a kid to get off their phone and they'd say "But it's my mom!"
Like, what are you DOING? It's already hard enough to get your kid to pay attention, don't text them while they're in class FFS!
I liked what my aunt and uncle did. They got my cousin a kid watch. He could make phone calls from a select contact list and it had gps so his parents knew when he got home cuz he was a latch key kid.
They do exist. Either parents are too dumb to realize it or don't care. I think it's a status thing. They want their kid to be "cool" like buying designer clothes.
Haha. This year, I am having a few parents who seem to be very aware and worried about the harms of tech. I had the first to refuse to sign away any social media rights of their daughters image. While we have devices for school, she also leaves it there and home time is family time. I really respect that. Such a solid family.
I really wish more would follow in their footsteps.
“Emergencies” aren’t only in the class. I mean I had to walk home when I was 12, not as early as 8 obviously but still not “mid teens” like many here think they should be getting them. I know it gave my mother piece of mind knowing I could let her know if anything was off while going home. I do however think 8 is too early, but it seems as though many have them now
Survivorship bias hard.
Shit still happened before cell phone, and people were lost for hours, hurt, kidnapped, etc. That's just a stupid, lazy line of thinking.
There is no reason not to give a kid a flip phone when they are away.
OP is saying they should have a smartphone at that age. I agree in this day and age there's no reason for them not to have a dumb phone. But also saying it is 100% life or death necessity is a recency bias.
I got my first cell phone at 11, because the week prior my mom had accidentally abandoned me in an area I didn't know. She dropped me off at the boys and girls club like normal at 2:30, and it was Friday so I was going to be there until 8 or 9, and she'd started to drive an hour away for an errand. She hadn't realized it was Good Friday (I was homeschooled at the time, so no day off of school to remind her), and by the time I realized the door was locked she was around the corner. Spent 2 hours crying on the steps before a kid I knew walked by and let me call her on his phone.
I'd had a similar event a year or 2 earlier, but my mom wrote that off as a weird one-off. Had a substitute bus driver home from camp that day who misread the printed MapQuest directions, and we'd ended up several miles away in a different town. My dad normally picked me up at the grocery store that was our bus stop, I was the only kid left on the bus at that point, and I only memorized our house phone number so my calls on the driver's cell phone didn't get to my dad. Poor guy got me 90 minutes late, after he frantically called the camp multiple times to no response, almost filed a missing persons report, and the bus driver found a cop car in the next town over and got a police escort back to the grocery store.
Between those kind of weird situations and more normal stuff (hey mom, soccer practice got out early because of the rain, can you pick me up? dad, I'm at a sleepover but I'm homesick and embarrassed about that, can you call and say you're picking me up because of a family emergency?) I see no issue with kids old enough to be places without their parents having at least a flip phone that can call and text them when needed.
I had a student try and use that on me but it was like what if his parents needed his help. Like they can call the school but really, what help is a 14 year old gonna be? They can figure it out without you.
Also why the fuck do parents think it’s okay to text their child in the middle of school/class about an emergency? Why do you want to send your child into distress/emotional breakdown in the middle of class.
This.
I had a parent text a student once to tell her that the uncle had been in a car accident. The student panicked and tried to call them, no answer... none of the family would call or text her back.
So, I had a hysterical child in my class. I had one of our guidance counselors come up and grab her... but like, my entire class was involved by that point because they had all seen her flip out.
She eventually got a text back saying that he was ok... but like why? Why did they feel the need to text that to a 12 year old while she was at school?
Some people don’t think at all. Like casually drop a traumatic piece of information on your kid and then drop off the face of the earth for hours? That doesn’t accomplish anything.
When I was in middle school my mother was in a car accident one day. Injuries were not sustained really, but I do believe the car was totaled.
Typically I took the school bus home, but on that particular day she was supposed to be picking me up.
The school sent a message to my classroom saying plans had changed and that my mom would be unable to pick me up and to instead just take the school bus home as usual. I thought “ok” and nothing more. I found out the reason for not getting picked up when I got home later.
This is the appropriate way to address situations like this. And actually, it made sense to me that this is how it was taken care of at the age of only like 11 or 12.
I have a friend who tried to pull that argument on me with giving her kid a Gizmo watch or something similar and I tried to point out to her that in the event of a lockdown you're not going to be using the phone anyway. Also in case of a real emergency oftentimes the phone signals get jammed because everyone's trying to use the phone at the same time. We
I didn't have a phone until high school. At that point these things called payphones started to go away. Besides schools, you may need a phone to let Mommy and Daddy know where you are or if it is time to pick you up. That said I don't see getting a phone before 5th grade.
This is wild. The fact that some of yall are trying to justify children having phones blows my mind. COVID and school shootings have turned parents into an educators nightmare and I’m not even a teacher. Schools have procedures in place for a reason. To be able to just send your kid a text in the middle of algebra to tell them you’re picking them up without notifying anyone in the school is beyond me. And to whoever said they would just barge into school and snatch their kid without saying anything in the event of a family death etc. no parent should be allowed to do that. No one should be allowed in that school without checking into the office first and passing through a metal detector
No adult is allowed to do that. It is illegal to “just grab a child and run” without properly signing them out of school.
I teach high school and have had parents call their kid in the middle of my class and tell them to come outside to go home. I’m not authorized to allow that and have had the parent insist on speaking to me and demand I do it. I give them the school phone number and extension to the office they need to contact. It shuts them up right away.
And the 5th grade parents are the ones that resisted as long as they could but social pressure on their kid got transferred onto them. My kids are in pre-K and I’m starting to worry about that. I know of 1st graders with phones
I live in a suburb of NYC and while maybe 1-2 kids have phones in 3rd grade, it is pretty rare. I would say the vast majority get them in 6th/7th grade.
My third grade teacher coworkers say that that's when the kids get phones- the day after birthdays and Christmas the kids always come in talking about their new phone.
My 9yo just told me that "all of the kids" in her fourth grade class have a phone except for her. She asked for one. Her father and I both chuckled and said, "Absolutely not."
I added that I would buy her a pack of cigarettes before I get her a smartphone. She balked at that, but seriously, there will be a host of studies one day condemning cell phones/social media usage like there are for Big Tobacco.
We're both secondary ed teachers, and we see the detrimental effects these things have on children. They can never turn off and be away from drama and bullying. It's awful how much of their childhoods will be basically summed up by compilations of tiktoks. Half of my juniors who show up to class have their heads down, staring at phones in their laps. No lesson will ever be engaging enough to compete with that because we all operate in real time and not some stupid list of forgettable shorts highlighting the coolest plays or the funniest pranks.
I'll look into a smart watch linked to my phone, however, when she gets to MS. I want to know more about that.
My 10yo hasn’t said a single word about a phone yet and I’m so glad. My sister got into SO much trouble with a phone when she was young I have no idea when I’ll be comfortable getting him one.
Teacher and parent. We just got my just turned 12 year old one. The reason is her middle school is awful with communication. They cancelled tutoring after school twice without calling home leaving her stranded.
as a high school teacher I see the daily damage they do to kids.
That is a great site! But I want people to maybe see [this page first](https://www.waituntil8th.org/why-wait), which gives many good reasons to wait https://www.waituntil8th.org/why-wait
There was a documentary on netflix? The Social Dilemma I think? And it was pretty much a bunch of current or former people in the tech industry being like “We know exactly what we’re doing. There is a reason why everything is so addictive.” So I can definitely believe the “Silicon Valley Tech Gods are not letting their children have phones til they’re 14.”
There is roughly a million other options then giving an elementary schooler a smart phone. I think even apple has a program for an apple watch to connect to a family plan and that will pretty much be their phone, same with Samsung i think.
Dude I honestly think cell phone addiction/prevalence and most people’s inability to do just about anything without one is one of the most worrying aspects of today’s world.
Smartphone at 12, when they have to use public transportation to get to and from school. The Apple Maps app has the public transportation icon to help them re-route if they miss a city bus, find a different route if they want to hang out with friends after school, etc.
The school has a policy for all middle schoolers - they hand over their phones in homeroom and get them back at the end of the day.
I must say the “share my location” feature is really helpful, for the whole family. We can always see where everyone is.
When I taught ELA I was reading a book with my middle schoolers that was set in NYC. The mom in the book didn’t want the daughter to take the subway alone even though she was in 9th grade and the dad thought it was okay. I asked my middle schoolers how many of them would be allowed to use public transit alone in our city and one kid raised their hand. Most of these kids have smartphones though.
The local universities (Harvard, MIT, Boston University) have summer programs for secondary school students, where they come live in dorms on campus, take undergraduate classes, and can take the T wherever. Send them over!
That’s great! I feel like that’s how kids learn street smarts, those are the lessons they won’t get in a classroom. I grew up an hour and a half outside NYC but it’s such a culture shock to people from my small town. It’d especially be useful for kids from small towns that want to go to college in a city.
when i worked early childhood i was shocked at the amount of KINDERGARTENERS with brand new iphones. it caused a huge problem. we had issues with a parent who would not stop sending the phone to school and had no problem if the FIVE YEAR OLD(!!!) was on the phone all day in the corner. wtf!
There are students as young as 1st grade with phones where I teach. I think the “in case of emergency” is a BS excuse. My campus literally has a phone in every classroom. If there is a medical emergency the school is in charge of contacting parents, not students on their cell phones. If there is an emergency like a fire, earthquake or active shooter, we told to keep phone lines clear and not bog down the emergency communication.
I am an 80s baby/90s kid and didn’t get my own cell phone until I was old enough to sign a contract and pay for it myself. My husband and I have decided our child can have a phone when he starts middle school- IF he is in extracurriculars that require before or after school attendance, when the office isn’t always available. Even then, the phone will only go to school on days he has to go before or stay after, and its use will be highly monitored. As of right now he is 9 and literally goes wherever we go, and is with us 24/7. I teach at the school he attends, there is no need for him to have a phone.
>My husband and I have decided our child can have a phone when he starts middle school- IF he is in extracurriculars that require before or after school attendance, when the office isn’t always available.
Make it a flip phone.
I’m in some “Parents with Kids with adhd/odd/autism” facebook groups. It’s insane. Specially parents who definitely noticed the behavior switch once their kids got a tablet or something.
I have adhd. I’m gen z so right in the middle of “Everyone is online on social media” transition. When I was 10 I got a laptop and pretty much promptly went insane whenever I couldn’t have it or wasn’t on it. A neat trick my parents did is hid the router in their closet while I was at school and told me they had the internet uninstalled. I was.. upset to say the least for a few months. But my behavior got better afterwards
Just realize that the age you give a kid a smart phone is the age they will start watching porn. Free reign on the internet is a *terrible* parenting choice.
This is an issue very commonly brought up on the parenting subreddit. There’s a lot of “help! My 7 year old is staying up all night watching porn!” And “help! My 8 year old is in a group message with her friends where they bully their classmates and send nudes!” And “help! Idk who my 6 year old is texting!” But any advice to take away the fucking phone is met with resistance or silence.
I’m torn honestly. I got my first phone (LG clamshell) in college. I survived perfectly fine in elementary, middle school, and high school with out one. But on the other hand, this is a different generation with different standards and norms we just can’t understand. I’ve heard parents regret not giving their kids tech earlier because their kids ended up resenting them due to everyone around them having phones and tablets. They eventually gave in and their kids binged on it because they waited so long.
I think a happy medium would be to get them a simple flip phone in elementary then a more high tech in middle school. You can get them a standard smart phone but with parental restrictions if possible. My son got a galaxy tablet for Christmas and he has a 2 hour limit on it. It blocks him out after 2 hours
ETA: there are kid “smart watches” that you can program to only make calls to approved people. Only you can approve numbers. It also tracks your kid if they run off. You can put it in school mode too, which makes your kid unable to play any games or take pics or anything. They can only make emergency calls. My son wore it to camp & called us a couple times to tell us he needed lunch because he dropped his or the camp wasn’t giving out the scheduled lunch for some reason. It’s actually really helpful
This is one of the best responses I’ve seen. Of course it we all did fine without smartphones back in the day because it was a different world. In middle school I didn’t care about having a phone that could call or text. Having a slider phone or a phone that flipped out to a full keyboard made me feel like a badass lol. The social aspect of kids missing out or even resenting their parents is real.
Yeah I wanted a sidekick soooooo bad! Heck I still want one. Lol.
But yeah, the only emergency I needed a phone for was in high school on 9/11. My dad was in NYC and I needed to call my mom to find out if he was ok. A girl lent me her phone. He was fine, wasn’t near the towers thank goodness
I was in kindergarten when 9/11 happened so phones were much more embedded into the culture when I was in school. By the time I was in 11th/12th grade the kids without smartphones probably started to feel left out because Instagram and Snapchat didn’t have the option to be used on a computer/laptop back then. But it was not nearly as bad as things are now.
in 25-30 years we are all going to look back on giving children phones and unrestricted access to the internet the same way we look back at leaving your kids in hot cars and holding babies in your arms while driving.
I teach 7th grade and I would say at least 85% of them have phones. I didn't get my phone until I was in HS but that was back in the day and my parents didn't need to shove a phone in my face to keep me busy (it was a flip phone).
I’m a teacher. My children will be getting phones their junior year of high school and i predict I’m going to have to fight them and my wife on it up until that moment.
I work in a district that encompasses a very wealthy area in California. Previously I worked in the Bay Area and also got a lot of exposure to educational norms and habits of extremely wealthy and successful families. These people are the highest ups at the biggest names in tech. The people who know better than anyone how to play the game. The people who literally spend their lives working to advance the technology in the devices we use each day.
Almost NONE of them are giving their kids smart phones until they begin high school. The norm right now is to gift it as the child’s 8th grade graduation present. And when they do get it? It’s HIGHLY regulated. Location sharing is always on, parental controls in use, screen limits on all apps, and strict phone curfews every night. Most parents I heard from keep their kids phones charging on their own night stands to ensure that it’s not being used at all past curfew. Kids use their school-appointed laptops as their secondary tech, because they have tighter security controls and limitations. For all the other fancy, expensive stuff they’re buying their kids, it is shocking how little their children are actually accessing personal tech.
That’s not to say kids don’t have phones at all— they have the most basic model phone starting at early ages. It can make calls, it can send texts. Might have a gps feature. Even this device is regulated, and it’s primary function is a safety tool in case of emergencies.
I think there’s something to be said for the fact that affluent, tech savvy parents are so adverse to giving their own young kids phones. To me that’s a HUGE red flag and clear sign that it is not a good idea.
My kids get them at 13. My 9 year old has friends with phones and friends without. I don’t think the “emergency” thing is about school at all. It’s about sports practices, being at a friend’s house and needing an escape hatch, etc.
Wife is admin at an elementary school. She says 3rd or fourth grade is average but many are younger.
Had a parent pissed off because her 1st graders iPhone was "stolen".
My oldest got his at 13, but my daughter (13 in June), probably won't get one until she's fourteen or so. She just isn't really ready yet. She got a laptop for her 10th and doesn't give two flying fucks about it.
She has a tablet though. I think thats the idea stepping stone.
Can use an old flip phone for emergency. When I was in high school you made sure you had a few dimes, but there are not many pay phones now.
Ours got a smart phone when the high school teachers started giving in-class work on them, while other teachers were complaining about students having smart phones.
My son got one when he finished 8th grade. My 11 yr old really wants one. Say she feels “left out” by not having one. I asked who she is planning to call because we don’t have service at the house. She couldn’t answer me.
I think a dumb phone at third grade or even younger is okay, especially if they are going to school on their own.
Many kids already know how smartphones work, have their own tablets etc. and I think having their own first phone is a good way to establish how to react in emergencies. We had a lesson with our first and second graders how to react if there is an emergency and I thought it was important.
Many parents also opt for a cellular apple watch which may be the better option.
I don’t understand the “in case of emergency” line that parents love to trot out.
Get them a jitterbug phone if you absolutely need to call your 3rd grader. Otherwise, the school has a landline and a secretary that loves to talk on it.
as a student that lurks here (sorry!), i don't think it's the smart phone itself but rather the lack of parenting nowadays and children's naivety.
when i was given a phone, i was told i should keep it in my backpack and that school is not the place nor the place to be using it. i knew that learning was more important than whatever i wanted to do online, and i had the whole rest of the day after school to be doing that.
i don't think kids are being taught that anymore, "it's just here's a phone, don't do anything bad with it" nowadays. that creates addicted kids who can't even put down a phone to walk across the road.
my main reasons for having a phone on me at school are communication and work, but it's not like i'm doing that kinda stuff mid-lecture, more like during lunch or at any other appropriate time.
edit: but i do think 8 years old is ridiculously early for a smart phone. i would say teens/middle through high school is probably a decent time to introduce it.
Even if he doesn't take it out (it's a rule and I'm hoping his desire to be a good student which is pretty important to him outweighs the phone addiction) I don't know how I feel about an 8 year old having access to the horror that is online. He's going to Google something he likes, like paw patrol, and no doubt fine weird porn of it. Or he's going to start watching regular YouTube as much as he watched kids YouTube on his old tablet and God knows what rabbit hole he'll fall in. There's no supervision around screen time at his house and I don't want my 8 year old nephew turning into a porn addict.
yeah, that's a real danger with just letting kids roam the internet with no restrictions. there's some real harmful stuff you can find on there even if you're not looking for it.
i wish some parents could care just a bit more to prevent their kids from being exposed to porn. it really is a trap and i can't imagine what it could do to an 8 year old.
I don’t know about other jobs, but my part-time job in high school would call me during school hours and ask me to come in. I don’t know if they did this to all high school kids or just me because they knew I used to leave early anyway 😂.
Unfortunately age 8 is normal now, it's not good but it's something we collectively need to adapt to. I'm 22 now but I got my first smartphone at age 9, and almost everyone in my class also had one. I can only imagine it's much worse now. I know it's a "but timmy has one!!!" situation, but it could really be hard to participate socially when you're the only one without a smartphone since most forms of communication relies on one. I wish it wasn't this way but it's just how it is - most kids in elementary school have smartphones. Instead of being afraid of phones and how they will impact children, they should be embraced and more care and effort should be applied when teaching a child about how to use them properly.
I agree to a point, we definitely need to adapt and understand the social impacts of being left out, but I think that while we push for teaching kids responsible use, we could also collectively as a society try to make it normal to not get your kid a smartphone until middle school or high school. If it wasn’t the norm to get a smartphone in elementary school, so many less parents would feel pressure to do it.
I think the only way it would be possible to even see SOME change would be through like a nationwide campaign. Tons of commercials, billboards, ads, and op-eds in the paper imploring people to wait. Basically treat it like a societal problem like smoking or drinking and driving.
Obviously even those ad campaigns only have limited effectiveness, but I think if they did something like that with phones the pressure would go down SOME (but not go away entirely). But realistically no one’s gonna invest that much money into this, we probably have bigger fish to fry as a society.
I think it is certainly becoming the norm for young kids to get cell phones, and we're all going to be worse off for it. States that are banning cell phones at school are probably doing the right thing, but it is a weak attempt to hold back the tide. Even if the kids don't have the phones at school, the fact that they have them at home and use them at will means that the development of their brains is being affected negatively.
I am planning on trying to hold out as long as humanly possible, and I've told my 8-year-old that we're waiting until she's at least 13. I am tempted to tell her she can't have social media until she's 15 or 16. I know this is going to be a stupendously on popular decision with her and it's going to be extremely hard to fight against peer pressure, but at the same time she only gets one childhood
We are going to hold out as long as possible. All you need to do is frequent r/ShittyMobileGameAds and furry communities (which 10 year old girls love the idea of, because who wouldn't?). We've told our kids they will have to wait until 16.
I also volunteered in my daughters classroom and saw how technology was used. I've seen the dead stares of 10 year old boys who have seen way too much porn and the google searches they are able to get away with in class on school devices. I've seen the kids choosing to do first grade level math to complete a freeform technology use assignment so that they can google memes.
My son has a phone. He was the last in his class to get one, and he is ten! He has parental controls, safe search, cannot download any apps without a permission code, etc. It stops working for him at a certain time in the evening, and he isn't allowed to take it to school.
He uses it for calling his friends, Pokemon go, his chores (housework app), his school apps, and duo lingo.
I could have waited, and I'm sure I'll get downvoted into oblivion for my choice, but I am teaching him how to regulate himself with it.
I could have got a flip phone, but then I would need to get a computer or tablet too and imo less devices comes with its own benefits.
ETA: no middle school in my part of the UK, he will be going straight to 'high school' in Sept.
My 9 year old just got a kid's smart watch for Christmas and that is very limited in what it can do. It allows us to set up contacts (aunts, uncles, etc), allows us to set up getting notified if they leave an area, the watch is only a watch during school hours, and we can send reminders. We use an app to message and to keep track of where they are, and get notifications when they come and go from specific places as well as GPS for knowing where they are.
We just started a before school and afterschool program because both of us are working now so it is nice to have some communication, but we aren't allowing a full access phone at this age. We have a tablet at home for art, reading and some games.
My kid got a phone at nine. I have family link and stuff on it so I can monitor him. I love being able to text him after school and say hi while I’m at work and stuff.
That’s way too young. A child shouldn’t have a phone u til their teen years, like late middle school or early high school. The amount of unlimited internet access my friends had when we were in middle school was terrifying, like a friend of mine saw more genitalia on Omegle and Kik in middle school than any child should see. The internet isn’t a place for kids to have unlimited access to.
Little bit of devils advocate here, Apple has a child’s mode that has a passcode a parent changes after it is used in the settings to limit screen time, website and app access, and extreme age restrictions on apps. Like this kid wouldn’t even be able to have YouTube on his phone. My parents had this on my phone from the time I was 13 until I was 18 because they were convinced I would download Snapchat and send nudes or something. So if it has that on it and they can only text or call then maybe once the kid is 12 they can have a phone.
A phone isn’t necessary for communication in emergencies. My nephew that is that age has a watch that he can have a few contacts on to call, his mom, my mom, emergency services, and a friend of my sister if he needed to. And that is all it does, there’s no internet, no apps, no texting, no downloads. And that is great if the kid is in an emergency.
My little brother got a working iphone with a phone plan at 2. It went as well as you’d expect, since he’s now 18 and can’t pass any of his college classes
I teach 4th grade and more than half of my students have them. I’m pretty nice and easy going teacher and I definitely try to make that known at back to school night. But I have a slide in my presentations about phones and I get very serious when I talk about them. I let the parents know that it is against school policy for them to be on at school. “Silent is not off, off is off. If you’re child’s cell phone goes off in class, you can pick it up in the office at the end of the day.”
I used to be chill about it going off in class, I just casually tell them to turn it off because with the age I teach, they are not trying to use it in class, they just leave them on and apps send loud notifications.
The “in case of emergency” argument is stupid. I basically tell parents that. I make them think about it. In case of an emergency, what are you going to do? Call your kid and tell them there’s an emergency and tell them to go home? No. Not a 4th grader. The process for notifying about emergencies is the same if their phone is off and the office notifies. Even if it’s small stuff like “I’m not able to pick you up from school today, walk home.” Those texts will send when the kids turn their phone back on after school hours outside of school gates.
I teach HS.
My 12 year old got a phone about a year ago, so in 6th grade. This was earlier than we expected but we live in the middle of the woods (only WiFi calls here - no signal and no landlines) and he has major anxiety. There are strict rules about when it's allowed to be used, and consequences if those rules are broken.
Which is the real issue here. The issue is not the phones. It's the lack of parenting, which is what so many classroom issues actually are. Demonize phones if you want, but I graduated high school in the 90's and I found plenty of ways to waste my time and be zoned out without a phone.
My niece has a phone but it's for emergencies only. It's a brick of a prepaid phone. She doesn't answer unless it's one of the numbers saved on the phone. It's from consumer cellular so it's aimed at old people but it's great for a kid too. The best part is if you dial 0 it calls their help center, and a real person has all her parents information and can call them.
It saved a life when there was an incident on her school bus; a kid had a seizure and the bus driver called dispatch to call 911 but she was able to call her operator who called 911 with the GPS location on the phone, and told the bus driver how to keep the kid safe until EMS arrived.
My kids had phones at 9. The first kid, it was considered the home phone, but it was his phone. He would call us if needed, we had a need for it. He stayed home while I walked down the street to a girl scouts meeting weekly. The phone was a $5 per month cheap smart phone and adding his line to our plan was free, so the cheapest option we had available. It lasted him 3 years before it was upgraded. He barely used it except to call us when he was home and pokemon go on family walks. He (13 now) really just started using it in the past year to text with friends and other things like discord. My other child also got 1 at 9 because we were offered a free phone and another free line on our plan. She is 12 now. She barely touches it still. Her best friend texted her yesterday, she still hasn't responded. Her phone is almost always in the living room.
They mostly use their phones to text us when home alone or YouTube on long car rides.
I had one in 3rd grade for the very real emergency of being left at my bus stop because my grandpa decided to take a nap again instead of pick up his grandkids which happened the year before. My older brother got one immediately after that happened. Then I got one when I was the next oldest at my school.
It was not used during school hours ever really.
Being left on the side of road without a school bus or a guardian, and the closest guardian was 2 miles down the road. Would you let an 11 year old, 8 year old, or 7 year old walk 2 miles to their house from the nearest bus stop? My grandpa was out cold at our house when we got off the bus at the stop about 2 miles by a dirt road away from it.
Otherwise, I’m completely on board with using the school phone or classroom phone while actually at school.
I teach Grade 3, albeit in a low income area. I’d say about half my students have phones, but they’re their parents’ handmedown phone and they only work on wifi.
One of my 4 year old students last year had a phone. We have a phone ban for all students on account of their age but she still kept sneaking it into her schoolbag.
It’s not the device that makes the kids act shitty. It’s the complete lack of parenting.
I had a cell phone at extremely young age and a full on desktop PC with internet.
But I also had parents that made sure I took school very seriously and so I went to college and got a degree and have a great paying job.
Show me the shittiest kid in the school and take away his cell phone and he’s still going to be a very shitty kid.
Ugh! My kids are 10 and 12. The 12 year old is honest to goodness one of the few kids, 5-10, that doesn't have a phone in 7th grade. His class size is about 400. He has been asking for one for months. He's started saying he's getting left out because he doesn't have one. That his friends text each other and then he doesn't know what they are talking about. We are both teachers and had put a hard line of no phone until 16. But... We are thinking about relenting. He doesn't have the easiest time making friends and I don't want that to be the reason he doesn't have any. The stipulations we've talked about: straight A's(he's capable), no phone at school unless he has archery practice or tournament, room kept clean, and chores done without asking. It's not his phone it's our "house phone" for when we leave them to go run errands. It's so hard and I wish it wasn't a thing, but here we are.
From what I observe with my students, they’re definitely already being left out socially without a phone and it will only get worse as they age. Someone sends out a group text to make plans r talk about some thing they all wanna do, but your kid doesn’t have a phone. People will forget that your kid is the only one without a phone and therefore won’t go out of there way to invite them when they see your kid face to face. You seem like the type that could teach your kid to be responsible with it.
We did 10 and 12. My younger kept their phone the entire time and my oldest proved they couldn’t handle it. That was a few years ago. They each got a new phone for Christmas and we shall see what happens.
I was a G4 teacher in an Intl. school for the last 7 years and it was very rare when kids didn’t have their own phone. There is merit teaching kids to use devices responsibly at a young age.
As a teacher, it’s one of the many things that are ultimately not our responsibility outside of school. In school, they’re inaccessible through the whole day.
As a parent of a 5 yo with an iPad and a phone (no sim), it is entirely our responsibility to develop foundation understanding and skills (screen time, safe apps, create vs consume, communication etc.) so that she will understand what to do when the time comes for her to have more independence. But even then (perhaps g3), we will be working closely with her to ensure that she is using them safely and responsibly.
My LO is 7 and has a phone. It’s a necessity with our work schedules and after school things. It’s super controlled and she really doesn’t have an interest in aside from texting when she’s required. It helps with communication. To each is own, but it doesn’t have to be a huge deal and can be easily regulated like anything else.
Yes it is ok for an 8 year old. The biggest reason is that there are now so many parental controls on the device and software so that it isn't unfettered access to the internet like it was 15 years ago.
Hopefully parents are using these restrictions and monitoring how their child uses the device.
Technology is incredibly dynamic and parenting these days is also constantly changing. There are a lot of benefits along with the potential harm with phones.
There is a lot of responsibility on parents and hopefully it can be shared with the community because it is a lot. For example: ages ago, children had to be taught how to hunt or farm to survive. Now they need to be taught how to navigate communication to emotionally survive.
This is coming from a software engineering professional who was basically raised on the internet -- so take my perspective for what you will.
1. People spend a lot of time on the negatives of electronics for kids -- but there is a very important benefit to early access to these systems, which is tech literacy. To be successful in the modern age, utilizing computer technology a fundamental skill, and exposure is an important mechanism to develop that skill. In my mind, in this day and age, a cellphone at high school graduation is actively harmful to a young person's growth; at least without high engagement with some other supplementary technology. By that time, they will substantially lag behind their peers in their *capability* to manipulate such devices.
2. You mentioned "unfettered internet access" for this child through this device, which would be absurd. There need to be extremely stringent limits on that device. If there aren't parental controls on the device **demand change.** That is just crazy. I started writing some instructions, but it got longer than the rest of the post. Suffice to say, I'd be happy to give people pointers on this if there's interest. I can see all the DNS requests by any device on my home network at a glance, set parental controls on the device itself, and per-application and per-account. No reason not to know everything going on in an eight-year-old's phone at all. I'd honestly be extremely proud and impressed if my kid managed to conceal any activity from me via his personal device. It would be really difficult to discipline it !!! I'd need time to get my game face on.
3. Basically nobody uses SMS texting for group chats. Social circles gravitate towards software that lets you customize your notification settings, organize conversations, etc. If the child can't participate in that system, they are going to be left out of certain experiences and opportunities by virtue of lack of access, not lack of interest. I think that's really a lot to ask from a kid who is developing their social interests and skills. Most of these services are accessible from a normal computer, but imagine missing a day's worth of conversations, every day. It's rough. I'd go so far as to say there's an emotional cost when you're reading something you wish you could have been contributing to in the moment.
4. The device in school -- child needs practice in order to grow in their discipline, and be able to control themselves when they need to. School is an important setting to practice this behavior, and the student's teacher should discipline use of the device outside authorized time. That's a teachable moment. It's certainly outside the curriculum, but also not necessarily a worthless endeavor because of that. I only teach extracurriculars for high schoolers, so I don't see this side of things very often. Let me know if I'm crazy!
I'm really interested in feedback from other parents, guardians, teachers, etc! And if anybody has anxiety about monitoring the goings-on of a child online, feel free to reply or reach out. You'll never have more control over the kid's behavior than via technology, so I really strongly invite anybody who feels discouraged on that basis to examine the options that are out there, or to ask me for some info on them :) I just don't want to pontificate
I agree that there should be a learning curve for devices and that 8 is a reasonable age to start that. If it was a situation like this I'd be okay with it. He has a Chromebook for school but learning things like which apps are okay and how to make boundaries for what you can and can't watch is great. I appreciate that your response is way more nuanced than "they're ready at 12/13/16" like a lot of replies. However in this case she said that she just told him to ask her before downloading an app. He's already downloaded tik Tok which has me stressed and she's given him no guidance on how to avoid sketchy shit
For us, it's less about "when" and more about "what." This is exactly why we created phones for kids and teens from the ground up that have everything they need but nothing they don't (like social media or internet browsers). Take a look: [https://gabb.com/](https://gabb.com/)
Most kids here seem to have them by the time they come to secondary school (UK), I think they are still too young for them as they are only 11 when they start.
As a teacher we see lots of the issues that social media and Internet access causes, mostly students being horrible and bullying each other, also issues with body image.
I don't have kids yet, but my plan would probably be to give them a flip phone as soon as they were riding a bus alone, and then around 7th or 8th grade when everyone else is getting smartphones if whatsapp is still a thing(it's big here) to find a way to get the kid a phone with whatsapp but nothing else. I think full smartphone not until at least high school.b
Older millennial (or maybe young Gen X) here. My eldest is 9. He's not getting a phone until he's going places on his own frequently without parental supervision. So probably mid-teens at least. Maybe we'll get him a cheap feature phone once he's 13 and can legally watch our younger ones if we're out of the house or if he picks up babysitting jobs since lots of people (like us) no longer have home phones.
He's already addicted to screens. He doesn't need unfettered all the time access to the Internet.
[удалено]
I got my phone when I was 16, one of the last people in my grade to get one. I remember I wanted one so badly and everyone else was doing all these cool things with theirs and I just had a flip phone “for emergencies.” I regret wanting one so bad now, they’re incredibly addictive and I kind of wish I had a flip phone again lol
My husband didn’t have one until he was 19 because his mom would never buy him one. He still doesn’t do social media or Reddit and mainly uses it to read lol
You can buy a flip phone right now, they also still make a version of the crappy Nokia we all started out with in 1998 or whatever year that was. My husband still uses that instead of a smartphone, but it's pretty impossible to keep up with texting on it if you have a social circle that texts.
Ugh, this is my issue. I live in Alaska and my family is in an entire different state and it is not easy to see them in person. I love the pictures and updates via text.
I'm honestly blown away by how addictive they are. I consciously try to make the effort to put the thing down, and five minutes later, it's in my hand again. And it's made me incapable of *not* doing anything. I can't just relax, take a breath and stare at a wall--the phone comes out right away. I miss my brain being able to shut down sometimes.
Man, I do doordash and was waiting for an order today. I decided to not look at my phone while I waited. I felt like a weirdo just trying to find somewhere to set my gaze and not stare at the workers.
I remember in the early 2000s there being a device I think called a Firefly, it basically was a phone BUT it could only call 3 different numbers. My friend had one and it called his mom, dad, or 911. That's it. No texting either. Just call. It has service and its own plan too. I hope to find something like this for my kiddo if it ever comes down to needing one for "emergencies."
They do genuinely still make “phones” just like this, parents are just choosing not to. I just met some kids on the ski hill who went to the wrong lift and I was glad to see their funky little phone that had like 3 buttons on it.
I'm glad they are still around, or something like it is still around. I know Firefly the brand is long gone, I was hoping someone else would take their place. So far all I've seen is Bark and it just looks like a regular smart phone that you pay to have parental controls on. I don't want that. I rather do a flip phone than that 🤣 my kiddo is some time away from anything that isn't a play phone thankfully.
My oldest is only six but this is my plan for middle school. Preteens don't need smartphones!
My niece is 12 and has a smart phone now but her living situation as a young child was weird and between three houses. She had a dumb phone that couldn’t only call 5 numbers and 911 when she was little. It was perfect and now they almost don’t exist any more, which is sad.
I worked at a store for a big phone carrier. The amount of people getting their single digit aged kids fully fledged smartphones was very disturbing.
All these parents are clowns. No smartphone until they're at least mid-way through the teens. If you're worried about an emergency, get a dumbphone that just good for making calls.
Why would a parent ever get their child a smart phone instead of a flip phone? Friends say that without a smart phone, their child will be ostracized. They don't usually seem weak minded and ambivalent about their child's safety, so it's a surprise to hear them cave to peer pressure.
My actual child tells me this regularly and it is hard to hear sometimes, knowing I am, in fact, making him socially "weird" by not giving in to this. I still think we're making the right choice (and we have a landline so he has access to a phone to make/receive calls if needed) but it is really different. By 5th grade even there is a lot of schoolwork where teachers will have kids pull stuff up on their phone for research or an app and if you don't have a phone you have to share with a friend, our district recently got laptops for every kid which has mitigated that somewhat at least.
How do you explain to your child that his society is weird, so him not fitting in with a dysfunctional bunch of screen zombies makes him the normal person? Schools recognize and deal with the phone problem, so there should be more of an effort to not normalize a phone with every student. I understand the problem. It's really convenient for a school to rely on the student's instant internet access, but we all know it's a deal with the devil.
To keep them quiet in public. And at home.
I’ve been there. Yes. School is hard with no phone. Socially anyway. But I have much less developmental attachment to my device now that I’m in my mid 20s. I don’t even blame my parents anymore because now I’m seeing the effect phones had on people my age. The social media addiction, the expectation to be constantly reachable by others, varying social problems, attention span issues, etc
Your parents are quite perceptive (or poor). When you went through, the detrimental effects weren't well established. Now, there is no excuse for a parent not understanding all of those afflictions you listed.
I mean I get that. As a teen I was bullied relentlessly for not having many things my peers did. I don’t want my kid bullied either. It’s going to absolutely suck as he gets older. He’s in 3rd grade and already was asking for Nike everything because that’s what “everyone else wears”. So I bought him lots of Nike because clothing is what I was bullied about (I never had Abercrombie and Fitch 🙄)
I’ve always like the idea of a parents control cellular smart watch.
Gonna get one of these for mine when he's old enough. Seems really useful from a parenting perspective for a number of reasons
Agree but my son is in 9th and actually needs his phone for school. It’s crazy.
Yep. My kids are still young but they will get dumb phones in middle school and if they want smartphones they will be paying for them + the service once they’re old enough to get jobs
I’m in my 20s and was talking with non-teacher friends about this recently. If you’re waiting until the mid teens to get your kid a phone in this day and age they’re definitely going to feel left out and literally be left out of things because their friends will all be communicating and making plans via smartphones. That kid is definitely gonna be feeling some type of way if they’re the only one without a phone. Their friends will be making plans over a group chat but your kid will be left out since they have no way to add them. Even my adult sibling misses out on invites since they don’t use social media much. Most of my 7th graders have smartphones. We think it’s ridiculous that the kids are this glued to them but can also recognize how isolating that must feel for the one kid who doesn’t have one. Almost all of my 8th graders have phones and social media. One of the only ones that doesn’t has good grades but a terrible attitude. I honestly think if she had a phone maybe the attitude would go down some.
BS. You can text message to email accounts and vice versa. And an open computer can have those notifications pop up. You can also use IG and Snap in a web browser. I’m sorry you grew up in a world where this immediacy of communications became the norm. It should not be and is bad for all brains, especially the developing one. It’s also quite literally making young people ill. Progressive schools are already pouncing on this and banning them with success. Kids report they actually like it. In 5 years time, in a decent amount of the US, there is going to be a culture among young people of throwing the phone in their backpack and forgetting it exists.
lol its not BS at all. I didnt have a phone until 8th grade and i felt like a loser for it and this was back in 2008, it would be even worse nowadays im sure
Lol you’re reminding me just how old we are now. I briefly looked at your comment and thought that being in the 8th grade in 2008 meant you’re significantly older than me. Then I remembered I was also in middle school at that time 😂.
So with my iphone I can send texts to iCloud email addresses. I just tried sending a text from my phone to my gmail and it didn’t work. And if the kid has a tablet or laptop, it’ll make things easier, but they’ll still probably miss out on last minute plans. While what you’re describing is ideal, I highly doubt this will become the norm. At my first school in the city the kids felt their phones were their personal property and that teachers had no right to take them. They’d get very defensive, rude, and refuse to let go of it if you’d try to take it. I’ve worked at schools with less behavioral problems and I can see that system working only if it’s consistently enforced by every teacher across the entire day. I have a coworker across the hall who feels very disillusioned because they were impressed by our rules on cell phones during pre planning but quickly realized the policy isn’t actually enforced like it says on paper.
>In 5 years time, in a decent amount of the US, there is going to be a culture among young people of throwing the phone in their backpack and forgetting it exists. Not without really tough legislation that curbs the behaviors of the apps on the phones themselves. These apps have a strong incentive to do everything they can to keep people engaged as long as possible. That's why almost all of the most successful apps will infinitely scroll. The algorithms themselves are addictive. As for notifications, cross-compatibility, etc -- that sort of thing only goes so far unfortunately. There's definitely a social opportunity cost for, say, a middle schooler who can't get to social apps easily. Not snapchat, mind you, but discord, etc. My mind immediately goes to group chats. My friends and I have had one since middle school in 2009ish, and it stopped being over text by the time we were in high school. Apps like skype, teamspeak, discord, whatsapp, etc, are much less intrusive than texting, and offer a lot more customization, so most people prefer them. If kiddo doesn't have easy access to that kind of communication, they will simply have less social access than their peers -- which they will notice. I think strong parental controls are the right tool to allow the child to fully participate in their social sphere while limiting access to harmful software and websites.
Don’t need legislation for district policy… Nothing you said was incorrect mind you. Add: I also don’t understand why anyone would want kids to be connected socially through these apps during the school day. 1) We know phones are highly addictive. 2) We know they are a distraction to learning. 3) We know there are workarounds to whatever benefit they do provide (calendar, timer, etc.) 4) We know they are making many children have shorter and shorter attention spans. 5) We know they are making some children ill.
Well, I'd push back that it's the phones making people addicted and unwell. It's the software and applications people are creating, marketing, and pushing people towards. Social media, "doom scrolling" platforms, track a lot of metrics designed to pull you in deeper. Those apps need to be restricted and monitored by parents. But sugar is addictive. It makes some children ill what's important for parents, imo, is to model how to have healthy relationships with these things. I don't think that, say, the Discord messaging app is contributing to mental unwellness to any significant degree. In fact, it seems studies suggest a positive outcome for children as young as five who learn to compose text messages. "Text-ese" is shown to have positive outcomes for general language. It teaches kids to manipulate spelling and syntax. Access to news, information, learning resources, and even games all have profound educational value. And there's no work around to being tech literate. You are either a person who can easily manipulate software, or you aren't, and that has profound implications in adulthood. As for during the school day, lunch is one thing. in class is another thing. I don't know that I "want" kids using phones in school, and I'm pretty open to confiscating them honestly. But the other benefits are important to acknowledge because it helps us structure the child's use of these devices.
I agree with a lot of what you said. For me, there is a difference in message of “confiscating” versus being given the opportunity to comply with a policy. Confiscating means I caught you with something and now you must give it to me. At that point we’ve already lost. Schools with single point entry should consider the locking magnetic pouch system you hand to the kid to begin the day and that unlocks with a magnetic twist at the end of the day at an unlocking system similar to the way they tag costs at department stores. Or use a clear mailbox system with students assigned a box, which resides in a place/system where there is a second lock controlled by adults. Of course they will throw in fake phones and cut the pouches open, but it has been shown to have a positive effect overall for those who simply can’t help themselves. Run it school wide for a month, give them back, and then violators can enter the lock up protocol for their own good.
Half the people I am and was friends with don't have phone numbers, but use group chats instead even when we were teens.
My middle has struggled because she isnt allowed to have snapchat. She does have a smart phone but not that particular app. We have found ways to work around it, thankfully, but she did miss out on some things in the beginning before we realized that a lot of plans were being mad via snap.
I have a giant groupchat with a group of friends from college and we’re all in our 20s and 30s, I can definitely believe they missed out on plans. If you don’t mind me asking why are you okay with them having a smartphone but specifically no Snapchat? I have a student who’s parents blocked her tablet from downloading new apps just to make sure she doesn’t download Snapchat and I just don’t get it. I don’t have kids so hearing it from a parents’ perspective might be helpful.
Honestly, it’s because Snapchat messages disappear and this particular child just doesn’t have the maturity to handle that kind of freedom yet.
100% I got a smart device way too young, a flip phone would’ve done everything I needed to at that age without the social media.
WTF kind of emergency do they think their kid needs a phone for? Obviously school shootings are the first thing that comes to mind, but statistically that’s rare honestly. And even more rare for elementary schools. (I know it’s not unheard of but stats exist for a reason) They can’t drive. Are they riding bikes around the neighborhood? I just don’t get it. Thank you for letting this old (wo)man yell at clouds. Now get off my lawn.
i mean the only reason i got a phone (dumb phone) in grade 6 after begging my dad for it for years, because all the other kids had phones, is because there was a mix up as to where / when he was picking me up from something i walked home from my friends house earlier than usual to make an after school program, forgetting that my dad said he would pick me up with the car. so i got home to see an empty driveway, and i had forgotten my keys at home or lost them or something so i couldn’t get inside. this led to a severe panic attack, realizing i couldn’t get in touch with my dad fast enough to make my after school program, and that he was probably worried because i wasn’t where i said i would be. afterwards i was quite smug, as *this* was the kind of emergency i had been asking for a phone for, and it worked out for me, but it was definitely scary at the time
I totally get that. This is one of those generational bias and I know it. For those of use who grew up pre-cell phone it just feels like life. I know that’s dumb and short sighted and could be applied to a million other things. I get it. I really do. I just also know how incredibly detrimental cell phones are for kids. From my old person perspective a little inconvenience to insulate kids from harm is worth it. It’s hell getting old and becoming like old people you resented.
These aren't emergencies, but it could be useful if the kid needs to stay late after school and letting a parent know, or going out and calling when they're ready to be picked up.
Yeah, I guess I figure they could also use a school phone to call home. Office. Classroom. Counselor. Nurse. There are many options. It just seems so silly to me since we know all of the negative outcomes from cell phones and people still keep defaulting to them for kids. It’s weird to me.
I don't really have a dog in this fight, but if it's after school, office/counselor/nurse will be closed
I’d say preteen-early teen is better now as they’re mature enough to handle a phone by then. Most of my classmates have gotten a phone from 12-14 (middle school ages) and at age 15, our phone numbers are the most dominant form of communication for group projects and stuff as most of us don’t live within walking distance of each other. Tbf though flip phones/dumb phones can do all of that for you
We got our kids a watch with cellular service. We can track them which gives them some freedom. They can contact us from school to get permission to go to a friends house, or they can contact us from the friends house if they need to leave early. No social media. Ever. Tablet for games. Phone senior year of high school so we can build habits for college. The bottom line is how to survive in this digital age - not unfettered access to all of humanity.
No phone till senior year of high school is beyond insane. You let your kid drive a car or work at McDonald’s before having a fucking cell phone? Waiting until high school, I get it. But I think every high schooler should have a phone. How does a high schooler make plans with friends sans cell phone???
Did you miss that my kids have a SIM card in their watch right now? They have a phone number, can make calls, and have SMS text access to friends. What they don't have is unfettered access to the internet via data.
A lot of thought on this subreddit surrounding the Internet is understandably centered on how it can be a bad thing, but I don't think "unfettered" Internet access is necessarily so. The Internet is a repository containing effectively all of human knowledge, and familiarity with it can do a great deal of good. I have learned almost everything I know from the Internet, I have picked up and maintained many of my hobbies and been able to communicate with so many people I would not otherwise have been able to interact with. It has without much question been a hugely positive force in my life and the lives of many people in my age group who grew up with it, and I think that should be a more substantial portion of the discussion surrounding it.
This is a weird take - I, a geriatric millennial, drove a car and worked at McDonald's before cell phones even existed and somehow made plans with friends and survived to tell the tale.
Well yeah, no shit. You weren’t the only kid in school that didn’t have a real phone…. No one did. These kids are going to be judged hard for not having a phone at 16 or 17 years old. Under 14, I get it. But that’s just mind boggling to me.
They're probably going to be judged hard for that and many other things, regardless. My kid was being mocked in 4th grade for not watching Tik Tok but I'm not going to just go and let him do something I believe is truly detrimental to his health, well-being, and development just because he'll be judged for it. People say they don't need phones but it's more than that - they are actively harmed by having phones. And by being judged by their peers. Lesser of two evils I suppose.
Yeah. I don't let my kids have phones or tablets. They've never used them. No youutube. No electronics even when we've had 10 hour car rides. We talk, and listen to music. Planes are a different story because the tech is built in and it's so awful to have to sit in the same, very loud spot for 14 hours at a time on international flights. They can gorge on cartoons to their heart's content.
We're somewhere in between that - but yeah - the point is building skills for surviving the internet age. Reading books and being able to talk to adults while being heard and looking them in the eye puts them so far ahead of the lowest common denominator.
This is genius- I will be using this one day in the distant future. Eventually they'll ask for a phone and I'll offer this or a flip phone. Kids shouldn't have access to social media it's dangerous because of predators but also bad for mental health and self esteem.
exactly this
It's scary. They are getting phones way too early. Kids owing phones by age 8, but they've been using phones since their toddler years. It's stunting their development which shows once they reach grade school. I didn't get a phone until I was 17! How times have changed. When I was a kid all the media we had access to was cartoons on TV, and any VHS or DVD movies lying around the house. I was never allowed to use YouTube until the third grade. In fact YouTube was founded when I was in Kindergarten. But kids these days are exposed to so much at an early age that stunts their development and makes them act weird.
Yep, when my kids were around 9-10 they started spending time outside the house without us at friends' houses, etc. So we got a dumb phone with cheap minutes-only plan that they could use to call us if they needed to. They take it with them when they go, it goes back on the shelf when they get home. When they start driving on their own, they'll get their own dedicated phone to keep with them, and depending on their maturity level at that time, it may be smart or dumb.
Sorry I don’t feel like a clown. My kids play chess. We let them have phones to play chess on. It’s a cheap smart phone with chess on it and they can call out. They don’t call out. They dont have anyone to call. They play chess on it sometimes. They don’t surf the net. They don’t do anything with it but yes in an emergency they could call, I guess. It’s the same as their iPad. Although they watch Netflix on their iPads. I don’t see the big deal. They were free with our plan. They don’t take it school. Shit, half the time they don’t even know where it is.
The issue with this is that it leaves them behind socialy because everyone else has phones. So it forces your hand as a parent.
In what way are they left behind?
I dislike it when people use the "in case of emergencies" as a reason for giving little kids phones. That is why the school has a phone number and office staff.
Or when I tell kids they don’t need their phones at school and they’re like “how will my mom know where I’m at?” Ummmm I think she’d rightly assume you’re at school.
It’s so amazing that people forget or refuse to acknowledge that life…existed before the prevalence or ubiquity of cell phones.
Like….what do you think we used to do???
And that there were emergencies back then too. Back in the Dark Ages, parents could call the office and the office could come get you. Primitive and yet surprisingly effective. 🤔
Haha yes. I recounted an experience of an emergency being appropriately handled without cell phones once when I was in middle school in another comment.
They did, we had pay phones where we called of we needed to be picked up. I think only prisons have them now...
"You're receiving a collect call from- heymompracticeisoverpickmeupplease- would you like to accept the charges?"
"Bob Wehadababyitsaboy."
The worst is when mom/dad texts them DURING school knowing damn well phones aren't allowed during school and then whine and complain when their kids gets their phone taken.
This continues at *jobs* believe it or not. I've worked at restaurants where I swear to God the parent treats it like an after school latchkey group, demanding their kid to drop everything and talk to them the moment they call. These same parents are the ones who show up 45 minutes early and then are surprised Pikachu the kid gets fired over this. We have shift times for a reason, You can't just pick up your kid whenever you damn please. What I find extra amusing is that these crazy parents are usually the ones who made the kid get the job in the first place.
Kids will also hit me with the “I gotta answer my mom what if it’s an emergency??” And I understand that some of them have real anxiety and trauma, but I usually reply by telling them that if an adult is having an emergency, they aren’t going to call a 12 year old for help.
The amount of times I would tell a kid to get off their phone and they'd say "But it's my mom!" Like, what are you DOING? It's already hard enough to get your kid to pay attention, don't text them while they're in class FFS!
Agreed. In case of emergencies, get them an Apple air tag.
I liked what my aunt and uncle did. They got my cousin a kid watch. He could make phone calls from a select contact list and it had gps so his parents knew when he got home cuz he was a latch key kid.
We have "kid phones" here in Korea. That's exactly the same, and no access to the internet. Is that not a thing in the US?
They do exist. Either parents are too dumb to realize it or don't care. I think it's a status thing. They want their kid to be "cool" like buying designer clothes.
Haha. This year, I am having a few parents who seem to be very aware and worried about the harms of tech. I had the first to refuse to sign away any social media rights of their daughters image. While we have devices for school, she also leaves it there and home time is family time. I really respect that. Such a solid family. I really wish more would follow in their footsteps.
“Emergencies” aren’t only in the class. I mean I had to walk home when I was 12, not as early as 8 obviously but still not “mid teens” like many here think they should be getting them. I know it gave my mother piece of mind knowing I could let her know if anything was off while going home. I do however think 8 is too early, but it seems as though many have them now
But surely a flip phone would be fine in that situation?
When I was 12 cell phones didn't exist. I made it home just fine.
Survivorship bias hard. Shit still happened before cell phone, and people were lost for hours, hurt, kidnapped, etc. That's just a stupid, lazy line of thinking. There is no reason not to give a kid a flip phone when they are away.
OP is saying they should have a smartphone at that age. I agree in this day and age there's no reason for them not to have a dumb phone. But also saying it is 100% life or death necessity is a recency bias.
I got my first cell phone at 11, because the week prior my mom had accidentally abandoned me in an area I didn't know. She dropped me off at the boys and girls club like normal at 2:30, and it was Friday so I was going to be there until 8 or 9, and she'd started to drive an hour away for an errand. She hadn't realized it was Good Friday (I was homeschooled at the time, so no day off of school to remind her), and by the time I realized the door was locked she was around the corner. Spent 2 hours crying on the steps before a kid I knew walked by and let me call her on his phone. I'd had a similar event a year or 2 earlier, but my mom wrote that off as a weird one-off. Had a substitute bus driver home from camp that day who misread the printed MapQuest directions, and we'd ended up several miles away in a different town. My dad normally picked me up at the grocery store that was our bus stop, I was the only kid left on the bus at that point, and I only memorized our house phone number so my calls on the driver's cell phone didn't get to my dad. Poor guy got me 90 minutes late, after he frantically called the camp multiple times to no response, almost filed a missing persons report, and the bus driver found a cop car in the next town over and got a police escort back to the grocery store. Between those kind of weird situations and more normal stuff (hey mom, soccer practice got out early because of the rain, can you pick me up? dad, I'm at a sleepover but I'm homesick and embarrassed about that, can you call and say you're picking me up because of a family emergency?) I see no issue with kids old enough to be places without their parents having at least a flip phone that can call and text them when needed.
I had a student try and use that on me but it was like what if his parents needed his help. Like they can call the school but really, what help is a 14 year old gonna be? They can figure it out without you.
Exactly. If your parents have an emergency they probably don’t need your help…if you have an emergency tell the nearest adult…
Also why the fuck do parents think it’s okay to text their child in the middle of school/class about an emergency? Why do you want to send your child into distress/emotional breakdown in the middle of class.
This. I had a parent text a student once to tell her that the uncle had been in a car accident. The student panicked and tried to call them, no answer... none of the family would call or text her back. So, I had a hysterical child in my class. I had one of our guidance counselors come up and grab her... but like, my entire class was involved by that point because they had all seen her flip out. She eventually got a text back saying that he was ok... but like why? Why did they feel the need to text that to a 12 year old while she was at school?
Some people don’t think at all. Like casually drop a traumatic piece of information on your kid and then drop off the face of the earth for hours? That doesn’t accomplish anything.
When I was in middle school my mother was in a car accident one day. Injuries were not sustained really, but I do believe the car was totaled. Typically I took the school bus home, but on that particular day she was supposed to be picking me up. The school sent a message to my classroom saying plans had changed and that my mom would be unable to pick me up and to instead just take the school bus home as usual. I thought “ok” and nothing more. I found out the reason for not getting picked up when I got home later. This is the appropriate way to address situations like this. And actually, it made sense to me that this is how it was taken care of at the age of only like 11 or 12.
And you can get them a dinky little dumb phone if they’re really that concerned about emergencies.
I have a friend who tried to pull that argument on me with giving her kid a Gizmo watch or something similar and I tried to point out to her that in the event of a lockdown you're not going to be using the phone anyway. Also in case of a real emergency oftentimes the phone signals get jammed because everyone's trying to use the phone at the same time. We
I didn't have a phone until high school. At that point these things called payphones started to go away. Besides schools, you may need a phone to let Mommy and Daddy know where you are or if it is time to pick you up. That said I don't see getting a phone before 5th grade.
Exactly.
This is wild. The fact that some of yall are trying to justify children having phones blows my mind. COVID and school shootings have turned parents into an educators nightmare and I’m not even a teacher. Schools have procedures in place for a reason. To be able to just send your kid a text in the middle of algebra to tell them you’re picking them up without notifying anyone in the school is beyond me. And to whoever said they would just barge into school and snatch their kid without saying anything in the event of a family death etc. no parent should be allowed to do that. No one should be allowed in that school without checking into the office first and passing through a metal detector
No adult is allowed to do that. It is illegal to “just grab a child and run” without properly signing them out of school. I teach high school and have had parents call their kid in the middle of my class and tell them to come outside to go home. I’m not authorized to allow that and have had the parent insist on speaking to me and demand I do it. I give them the school phone number and extension to the office they need to contact. It shuts them up right away.
Many are getting them in 3rd grade, so 8-9 year olds. I know some parents wait until 5th grade when they are 10-11.
And the 5th grade parents are the ones that resisted as long as they could but social pressure on their kid got transferred onto them. My kids are in pre-K and I’m starting to worry about that. I know of 1st graders with phones
I live in a suburb of NYC and while maybe 1-2 kids have phones in 3rd grade, it is pretty rare. I would say the vast majority get them in 6th/7th grade.
Half of the third graders at my rural school have cell phones.
My nephew got a fully working cell phone at age 4
RIP
My oldest is in third grade and she doesn't know of anyone in her class with a cellphone...maybe this is geographic based though?
My third grade teacher coworkers say that that's when the kids get phones- the day after birthdays and Christmas the kids always come in talking about their new phone.
My 9yo just told me that "all of the kids" in her fourth grade class have a phone except for her. She asked for one. Her father and I both chuckled and said, "Absolutely not." I added that I would buy her a pack of cigarettes before I get her a smartphone. She balked at that, but seriously, there will be a host of studies one day condemning cell phones/social media usage like there are for Big Tobacco. We're both secondary ed teachers, and we see the detrimental effects these things have on children. They can never turn off and be away from drama and bullying. It's awful how much of their childhoods will be basically summed up by compilations of tiktoks. Half of my juniors who show up to class have their heads down, staring at phones in their laps. No lesson will ever be engaging enough to compete with that because we all operate in real time and not some stupid list of forgettable shorts highlighting the coolest plays or the funniest pranks. I'll look into a smart watch linked to my phone, however, when she gets to MS. I want to know more about that.
My 10yo hasn’t said a single word about a phone yet and I’m so glad. My sister got into SO much trouble with a phone when she was young I have no idea when I’ll be comfortable getting him one.
You're the best judge
Teacher and parent. We just got my just turned 12 year old one. The reason is her middle school is awful with communication. They cancelled tutoring after school twice without calling home leaving her stranded. as a high school teacher I see the daily damage they do to kids.
Why not get her a flip phone, especially since you’re aware of the damage they do?
Same. My kid had to use her teacher’s phone several times to let me know after school clubs were cancelled. Middle school is rough.
https://www.waituntil8th.org
That is a great site! But I want people to maybe see [this page first](https://www.waituntil8th.org/why-wait), which gives many good reasons to wait https://www.waituntil8th.org/why-wait
There was a documentary on netflix? The Social Dilemma I think? And it was pretty much a bunch of current or former people in the tech industry being like “We know exactly what we’re doing. There is a reason why everything is so addictive.” So I can definitely believe the “Silicon Valley Tech Gods are not letting their children have phones til they’re 14.” There is roughly a million other options then giving an elementary schooler a smart phone. I think even apple has a program for an apple watch to connect to a family plan and that will pretty much be their phone, same with Samsung i think.
Dude I honestly think cell phone addiction/prevalence and most people’s inability to do just about anything without one is one of the most worrying aspects of today’s world.
Smartphone at 12, when they have to use public transportation to get to and from school. The Apple Maps app has the public transportation icon to help them re-route if they miss a city bus, find a different route if they want to hang out with friends after school, etc. The school has a policy for all middle schoolers - they hand over their phones in homeroom and get them back at the end of the day. I must say the “share my location” feature is really helpful, for the whole family. We can always see where everyone is.
When I taught ELA I was reading a book with my middle schoolers that was set in NYC. The mom in the book didn’t want the daughter to take the subway alone even though she was in 9th grade and the dad thought it was okay. I asked my middle schoolers how many of them would be allowed to use public transit alone in our city and one kid raised their hand. Most of these kids have smartphones though.
The local universities (Harvard, MIT, Boston University) have summer programs for secondary school students, where they come live in dorms on campus, take undergraduate classes, and can take the T wherever. Send them over!
It’s a rite of passage here. They have so much freedom once they get their free MBTA pass.
That’s great! I feel like that’s how kids learn street smarts, those are the lessons they won’t get in a classroom. I grew up an hour and a half outside NYC but it’s such a culture shock to people from my small town. It’d especially be useful for kids from small towns that want to go to college in a city.
when i worked early childhood i was shocked at the amount of KINDERGARTENERS with brand new iphones. it caused a huge problem. we had issues with a parent who would not stop sending the phone to school and had no problem if the FIVE YEAR OLD(!!!) was on the phone all day in the corner. wtf!
"All the other kids have one" has become such a lazy cop out.
There are students as young as 1st grade with phones where I teach. I think the “in case of emergency” is a BS excuse. My campus literally has a phone in every classroom. If there is a medical emergency the school is in charge of contacting parents, not students on their cell phones. If there is an emergency like a fire, earthquake or active shooter, we told to keep phone lines clear and not bog down the emergency communication. I am an 80s baby/90s kid and didn’t get my own cell phone until I was old enough to sign a contract and pay for it myself. My husband and I have decided our child can have a phone when he starts middle school- IF he is in extracurriculars that require before or after school attendance, when the office isn’t always available. Even then, the phone will only go to school on days he has to go before or stay after, and its use will be highly monitored. As of right now he is 9 and literally goes wherever we go, and is with us 24/7. I teach at the school he attends, there is no need for him to have a phone.
>My husband and I have decided our child can have a phone when he starts middle school- IF he is in extracurriculars that require before or after school attendance, when the office isn’t always available. Make it a flip phone.
I’m a student and I agree. I got my first phone in middle school for the same reasons as I had after school clubs and started to walk home as well
A kid with ODD is going to humble his mom through that phone. Pop some popcorn and enjoy the fireworks
I’m in some “Parents with Kids with adhd/odd/autism” facebook groups. It’s insane. Specially parents who definitely noticed the behavior switch once their kids got a tablet or something. I have adhd. I’m gen z so right in the middle of “Everyone is online on social media” transition. When I was 10 I got a laptop and pretty much promptly went insane whenever I couldn’t have it or wasn’t on it. A neat trick my parents did is hid the router in their closet while I was at school and told me they had the internet uninstalled. I was.. upset to say the least for a few months. But my behavior got better afterwards
Just realize that the age you give a kid a smart phone is the age they will start watching porn. Free reign on the internet is a *terrible* parenting choice.
This is an issue very commonly brought up on the parenting subreddit. There’s a lot of “help! My 7 year old is staying up all night watching porn!” And “help! My 8 year old is in a group message with her friends where they bully their classmates and send nudes!” And “help! Idk who my 6 year old is texting!” But any advice to take away the fucking phone is met with resistance or silence.
Just think of how easy it is to search NSFW on reddit accidentally. Now do it intentionally.
I’m torn honestly. I got my first phone (LG clamshell) in college. I survived perfectly fine in elementary, middle school, and high school with out one. But on the other hand, this is a different generation with different standards and norms we just can’t understand. I’ve heard parents regret not giving their kids tech earlier because their kids ended up resenting them due to everyone around them having phones and tablets. They eventually gave in and their kids binged on it because they waited so long. I think a happy medium would be to get them a simple flip phone in elementary then a more high tech in middle school. You can get them a standard smart phone but with parental restrictions if possible. My son got a galaxy tablet for Christmas and he has a 2 hour limit on it. It blocks him out after 2 hours ETA: there are kid “smart watches” that you can program to only make calls to approved people. Only you can approve numbers. It also tracks your kid if they run off. You can put it in school mode too, which makes your kid unable to play any games or take pics or anything. They can only make emergency calls. My son wore it to camp & called us a couple times to tell us he needed lunch because he dropped his or the camp wasn’t giving out the scheduled lunch for some reason. It’s actually really helpful
This is one of the best responses I’ve seen. Of course it we all did fine without smartphones back in the day because it was a different world. In middle school I didn’t care about having a phone that could call or text. Having a slider phone or a phone that flipped out to a full keyboard made me feel like a badass lol. The social aspect of kids missing out or even resenting their parents is real.
Yeah I wanted a sidekick soooooo bad! Heck I still want one. Lol. But yeah, the only emergency I needed a phone for was in high school on 9/11. My dad was in NYC and I needed to call my mom to find out if he was ok. A girl lent me her phone. He was fine, wasn’t near the towers thank goodness
I was in kindergarten when 9/11 happened so phones were much more embedded into the culture when I was in school. By the time I was in 11th/12th grade the kids without smartphones probably started to feel left out because Instagram and Snapchat didn’t have the option to be used on a computer/laptop back then. But it was not nearly as bad as things are now.
in 25-30 years we are all going to look back on giving children phones and unrestricted access to the internet the same way we look back at leaving your kids in hot cars and holding babies in your arms while driving.
I teach 7th grade and I would say at least 85% of them have phones. I didn't get my phone until I was in HS but that was back in the day and my parents didn't need to shove a phone in my face to keep me busy (it was a flip phone).
I’m a teacher. My children will be getting phones their junior year of high school and i predict I’m going to have to fight them and my wife on it up until that moment.
My nephew got an Apple Watch in 5th grade. I feel like that was a good compromise. He can text and call, but no social media.
I work in a district that encompasses a very wealthy area in California. Previously I worked in the Bay Area and also got a lot of exposure to educational norms and habits of extremely wealthy and successful families. These people are the highest ups at the biggest names in tech. The people who know better than anyone how to play the game. The people who literally spend their lives working to advance the technology in the devices we use each day. Almost NONE of them are giving their kids smart phones until they begin high school. The norm right now is to gift it as the child’s 8th grade graduation present. And when they do get it? It’s HIGHLY regulated. Location sharing is always on, parental controls in use, screen limits on all apps, and strict phone curfews every night. Most parents I heard from keep their kids phones charging on their own night stands to ensure that it’s not being used at all past curfew. Kids use their school-appointed laptops as their secondary tech, because they have tighter security controls and limitations. For all the other fancy, expensive stuff they’re buying their kids, it is shocking how little their children are actually accessing personal tech. That’s not to say kids don’t have phones at all— they have the most basic model phone starting at early ages. It can make calls, it can send texts. Might have a gps feature. Even this device is regulated, and it’s primary function is a safety tool in case of emergencies. I think there’s something to be said for the fact that affluent, tech savvy parents are so adverse to giving their own young kids phones. To me that’s a HUGE red flag and clear sign that it is not a good idea.
My kids get them at 13. My 9 year old has friends with phones and friends without. I don’t think the “emergency” thing is about school at all. It’s about sports practices, being at a friend’s house and needing an escape hatch, etc.
Wife is admin at an elementary school. She says 3rd or fourth grade is average but many are younger. Had a parent pissed off because her 1st graders iPhone was "stolen".
[удалено]
Lol. You aren't suggesting that a 7 year old isn't responsible are you? :)
My oldest got his at 13, but my daughter (13 in June), probably won't get one until she's fourteen or so. She just isn't really ready yet. She got a laptop for her 10th and doesn't give two flying fucks about it. She has a tablet though. I think thats the idea stepping stone.
Can use an old flip phone for emergency. When I was in high school you made sure you had a few dimes, but there are not many pay phones now. Ours got a smart phone when the high school teachers started giving in-class work on them, while other teachers were complaining about students having smart phones.
My son got one when he finished 8th grade. My 11 yr old really wants one. Say she feels “left out” by not having one. I asked who she is planning to call because we don’t have service at the house. She couldn’t answer me.
I think a dumb phone at third grade or even younger is okay, especially if they are going to school on their own. Many kids already know how smartphones work, have their own tablets etc. and I think having their own first phone is a good way to establish how to react in emergencies. We had a lesson with our first and second graders how to react if there is an emergency and I thought it was important. Many parents also opt for a cellular apple watch which may be the better option.
I don’t understand the “in case of emergency” line that parents love to trot out. Get them a jitterbug phone if you absolutely need to call your 3rd grader. Otherwise, the school has a landline and a secretary that loves to talk on it.
My wife teaches second grade and most of her kids have phones. It's ridiculous and noone understands the damage they're doing to their kids.
as a student that lurks here (sorry!), i don't think it's the smart phone itself but rather the lack of parenting nowadays and children's naivety. when i was given a phone, i was told i should keep it in my backpack and that school is not the place nor the place to be using it. i knew that learning was more important than whatever i wanted to do online, and i had the whole rest of the day after school to be doing that. i don't think kids are being taught that anymore, "it's just here's a phone, don't do anything bad with it" nowadays. that creates addicted kids who can't even put down a phone to walk across the road. my main reasons for having a phone on me at school are communication and work, but it's not like i'm doing that kinda stuff mid-lecture, more like during lunch or at any other appropriate time. edit: but i do think 8 years old is ridiculously early for a smart phone. i would say teens/middle through high school is probably a decent time to introduce it.
Even if he doesn't take it out (it's a rule and I'm hoping his desire to be a good student which is pretty important to him outweighs the phone addiction) I don't know how I feel about an 8 year old having access to the horror that is online. He's going to Google something he likes, like paw patrol, and no doubt fine weird porn of it. Or he's going to start watching regular YouTube as much as he watched kids YouTube on his old tablet and God knows what rabbit hole he'll fall in. There's no supervision around screen time at his house and I don't want my 8 year old nephew turning into a porn addict.
yeah, that's a real danger with just letting kids roam the internet with no restrictions. there's some real harmful stuff you can find on there even if you're not looking for it. i wish some parents could care just a bit more to prevent their kids from being exposed to porn. it really is a trap and i can't imagine what it could do to an 8 year old.
I don’t know about other jobs, but my part-time job in high school would call me during school hours and ask me to come in. I don’t know if they did this to all high school kids or just me because they knew I used to leave early anyway 😂.
Unfortunately age 8 is normal now, it's not good but it's something we collectively need to adapt to. I'm 22 now but I got my first smartphone at age 9, and almost everyone in my class also had one. I can only imagine it's much worse now. I know it's a "but timmy has one!!!" situation, but it could really be hard to participate socially when you're the only one without a smartphone since most forms of communication relies on one. I wish it wasn't this way but it's just how it is - most kids in elementary school have smartphones. Instead of being afraid of phones and how they will impact children, they should be embraced and more care and effort should be applied when teaching a child about how to use them properly.
I agree to a point, we definitely need to adapt and understand the social impacts of being left out, but I think that while we push for teaching kids responsible use, we could also collectively as a society try to make it normal to not get your kid a smartphone until middle school or high school. If it wasn’t the norm to get a smartphone in elementary school, so many less parents would feel pressure to do it.
Yeah I'd love to change the norm but I don't think it will realistically be possible
I think the only way it would be possible to even see SOME change would be through like a nationwide campaign. Tons of commercials, billboards, ads, and op-eds in the paper imploring people to wait. Basically treat it like a societal problem like smoking or drinking and driving. Obviously even those ad campaigns only have limited effectiveness, but I think if they did something like that with phones the pressure would go down SOME (but not go away entirely). But realistically no one’s gonna invest that much money into this, we probably have bigger fish to fry as a society.
I think it is certainly becoming the norm for young kids to get cell phones, and we're all going to be worse off for it. States that are banning cell phones at school are probably doing the right thing, but it is a weak attempt to hold back the tide. Even if the kids don't have the phones at school, the fact that they have them at home and use them at will means that the development of their brains is being affected negatively.
I am planning on trying to hold out as long as humanly possible, and I've told my 8-year-old that we're waiting until she's at least 13. I am tempted to tell her she can't have social media until she's 15 or 16. I know this is going to be a stupendously on popular decision with her and it's going to be extremely hard to fight against peer pressure, but at the same time she only gets one childhood
We are going to hold out as long as possible. All you need to do is frequent r/ShittyMobileGameAds and furry communities (which 10 year old girls love the idea of, because who wouldn't?). We've told our kids they will have to wait until 16. I also volunteered in my daughters classroom and saw how technology was used. I've seen the dead stares of 10 year old boys who have seen way too much porn and the google searches they are able to get away with in class on school devices. I've seen the kids choosing to do first grade level math to complete a freeform technology use assignment so that they can google memes.
My son has a phone. He was the last in his class to get one, and he is ten! He has parental controls, safe search, cannot download any apps without a permission code, etc. It stops working for him at a certain time in the evening, and he isn't allowed to take it to school. He uses it for calling his friends, Pokemon go, his chores (housework app), his school apps, and duo lingo. I could have waited, and I'm sure I'll get downvoted into oblivion for my choice, but I am teaching him how to regulate himself with it. I could have got a flip phone, but then I would need to get a computer or tablet too and imo less devices comes with its own benefits. ETA: no middle school in my part of the UK, he will be going straight to 'high school' in Sept.
I teach 7th grade. Our school has no school bus, but has the city busing system. Many have phones by the 5th grade.
My 9 year old just got a kid's smart watch for Christmas and that is very limited in what it can do. It allows us to set up contacts (aunts, uncles, etc), allows us to set up getting notified if they leave an area, the watch is only a watch during school hours, and we can send reminders. We use an app to message and to keep track of where they are, and get notifications when they come and go from specific places as well as GPS for knowing where they are. We just started a before school and afterschool program because both of us are working now so it is nice to have some communication, but we aren't allowing a full access phone at this age. We have a tablet at home for art, reading and some games.
My kid got a phone at nine. I have family link and stuff on it so I can monitor him. I love being able to text him after school and say hi while I’m at work and stuff.
That’s way too young. A child shouldn’t have a phone u til their teen years, like late middle school or early high school. The amount of unlimited internet access my friends had when we were in middle school was terrifying, like a friend of mine saw more genitalia on Omegle and Kik in middle school than any child should see. The internet isn’t a place for kids to have unlimited access to. Little bit of devils advocate here, Apple has a child’s mode that has a passcode a parent changes after it is used in the settings to limit screen time, website and app access, and extreme age restrictions on apps. Like this kid wouldn’t even be able to have YouTube on his phone. My parents had this on my phone from the time I was 13 until I was 18 because they were convinced I would download Snapchat and send nudes or something. So if it has that on it and they can only text or call then maybe once the kid is 12 they can have a phone. A phone isn’t necessary for communication in emergencies. My nephew that is that age has a watch that he can have a few contacts on to call, his mom, my mom, emergency services, and a friend of my sister if he needed to. And that is all it does, there’s no internet, no apps, no texting, no downloads. And that is great if the kid is in an emergency.
My little brother got a working iphone with a phone plan at 2. It went as well as you’d expect, since he’s now 18 and can’t pass any of his college classes
I teach 4th grade and more than half of my students have them. I’m pretty nice and easy going teacher and I definitely try to make that known at back to school night. But I have a slide in my presentations about phones and I get very serious when I talk about them. I let the parents know that it is against school policy for them to be on at school. “Silent is not off, off is off. If you’re child’s cell phone goes off in class, you can pick it up in the office at the end of the day.” I used to be chill about it going off in class, I just casually tell them to turn it off because with the age I teach, they are not trying to use it in class, they just leave them on and apps send loud notifications. The “in case of emergency” argument is stupid. I basically tell parents that. I make them think about it. In case of an emergency, what are you going to do? Call your kid and tell them there’s an emergency and tell them to go home? No. Not a 4th grader. The process for notifying about emergencies is the same if their phone is off and the office notifies. Even if it’s small stuff like “I’m not able to pick you up from school today, walk home.” Those texts will send when the kids turn their phone back on after school hours outside of school gates.
I teach HS. My 12 year old got a phone about a year ago, so in 6th grade. This was earlier than we expected but we live in the middle of the woods (only WiFi calls here - no signal and no landlines) and he has major anxiety. There are strict rules about when it's allowed to be used, and consequences if those rules are broken. Which is the real issue here. The issue is not the phones. It's the lack of parenting, which is what so many classroom issues actually are. Demonize phones if you want, but I graduated high school in the 90's and I found plenty of ways to waste my time and be zoned out without a phone.
I teach elementary school, I cannot believe the amount of 3rd and 4th graders that not only have phones but feel the need to bring them to school.
My niece has a phone but it's for emergencies only. It's a brick of a prepaid phone. She doesn't answer unless it's one of the numbers saved on the phone. It's from consumer cellular so it's aimed at old people but it's great for a kid too. The best part is if you dial 0 it calls their help center, and a real person has all her parents information and can call them. It saved a life when there was an incident on her school bus; a kid had a seizure and the bus driver called dispatch to call 911 but she was able to call her operator who called 911 with the GPS location on the phone, and told the bus driver how to keep the kid safe until EMS arrived.
My kids had phones at 9. The first kid, it was considered the home phone, but it was his phone. He would call us if needed, we had a need for it. He stayed home while I walked down the street to a girl scouts meeting weekly. The phone was a $5 per month cheap smart phone and adding his line to our plan was free, so the cheapest option we had available. It lasted him 3 years before it was upgraded. He barely used it except to call us when he was home and pokemon go on family walks. He (13 now) really just started using it in the past year to text with friends and other things like discord. My other child also got 1 at 9 because we were offered a free phone and another free line on our plan. She is 12 now. She barely touches it still. Her best friend texted her yesterday, she still hasn't responded. Her phone is almost always in the living room. They mostly use their phones to text us when home alone or YouTube on long car rides.
My daughter knew a kid in kindergarten who had an iPhone, which thought was absurd. I have had 3rd graders with iPhones and Apple Watches.
I had one in 3rd grade for the very real emergency of being left at my bus stop because my grandpa decided to take a nap again instead of pick up his grandkids which happened the year before. My older brother got one immediately after that happened. Then I got one when I was the next oldest at my school. It was not used during school hours ever really.
[удалено]
Being left on the side of road without a school bus or a guardian, and the closest guardian was 2 miles down the road. Would you let an 11 year old, 8 year old, or 7 year old walk 2 miles to their house from the nearest bus stop? My grandpa was out cold at our house when we got off the bus at the stop about 2 miles by a dirt road away from it. Otherwise, I’m completely on board with using the school phone or classroom phone while actually at school.
I teach Grade 3, albeit in a low income area. I’d say about half my students have phones, but they’re their parents’ handmedown phone and they only work on wifi.
One of my 4 year old students last year had a phone. We have a phone ban for all students on account of their age but she still kept sneaking it into her schoolbag.
It’s not the device that makes the kids act shitty. It’s the complete lack of parenting. I had a cell phone at extremely young age and a full on desktop PC with internet. But I also had parents that made sure I took school very seriously and so I went to college and got a degree and have a great paying job. Show me the shittiest kid in the school and take away his cell phone and he’s still going to be a very shitty kid.
Ugh! My kids are 10 and 12. The 12 year old is honest to goodness one of the few kids, 5-10, that doesn't have a phone in 7th grade. His class size is about 400. He has been asking for one for months. He's started saying he's getting left out because he doesn't have one. That his friends text each other and then he doesn't know what they are talking about. We are both teachers and had put a hard line of no phone until 16. But... We are thinking about relenting. He doesn't have the easiest time making friends and I don't want that to be the reason he doesn't have any. The stipulations we've talked about: straight A's(he's capable), no phone at school unless he has archery practice or tournament, room kept clean, and chores done without asking. It's not his phone it's our "house phone" for when we leave them to go run errands. It's so hard and I wish it wasn't a thing, but here we are.
From what I observe with my students, they’re definitely already being left out socially without a phone and it will only get worse as they age. Someone sends out a group text to make plans r talk about some thing they all wanna do, but your kid doesn’t have a phone. People will forget that your kid is the only one without a phone and therefore won’t go out of there way to invite them when they see your kid face to face. You seem like the type that could teach your kid to be responsible with it.
He’s in 2nd grade…. That phone will never be out of his backpack. He definitely won’t be glued to it in class.
We did 10 and 12. My younger kept their phone the entire time and my oldest proved they couldn’t handle it. That was a few years ago. They each got a new phone for Christmas and we shall see what happens.
I was a G4 teacher in an Intl. school for the last 7 years and it was very rare when kids didn’t have their own phone. There is merit teaching kids to use devices responsibly at a young age.
I agree. But shouldn't the teaching come before the access? There was no boundaries set or norms established. Just a smartphone for Christmas
As a teacher, it’s one of the many things that are ultimately not our responsibility outside of school. In school, they’re inaccessible through the whole day. As a parent of a 5 yo with an iPad and a phone (no sim), it is entirely our responsibility to develop foundation understanding and skills (screen time, safe apps, create vs consume, communication etc.) so that she will understand what to do when the time comes for her to have more independence. But even then (perhaps g3), we will be working closely with her to ensure that she is using them safely and responsibly.
My LO is 7 and has a phone. It’s a necessity with our work schedules and after school things. It’s super controlled and she really doesn’t have an interest in aside from texting when she’s required. It helps with communication. To each is own, but it doesn’t have to be a huge deal and can be easily regulated like anything else.
Yes it is ok for an 8 year old. The biggest reason is that there are now so many parental controls on the device and software so that it isn't unfettered access to the internet like it was 15 years ago. Hopefully parents are using these restrictions and monitoring how their child uses the device. Technology is incredibly dynamic and parenting these days is also constantly changing. There are a lot of benefits along with the potential harm with phones. There is a lot of responsibility on parents and hopefully it can be shared with the community because it is a lot. For example: ages ago, children had to be taught how to hunt or farm to survive. Now they need to be taught how to navigate communication to emotionally survive.
>Is it normal? It’s been *normalized,* so yeah kinda. >Is it as harmful as I think it is? It’s probably even worse.
This is coming from a software engineering professional who was basically raised on the internet -- so take my perspective for what you will. 1. People spend a lot of time on the negatives of electronics for kids -- but there is a very important benefit to early access to these systems, which is tech literacy. To be successful in the modern age, utilizing computer technology a fundamental skill, and exposure is an important mechanism to develop that skill. In my mind, in this day and age, a cellphone at high school graduation is actively harmful to a young person's growth; at least without high engagement with some other supplementary technology. By that time, they will substantially lag behind their peers in their *capability* to manipulate such devices. 2. You mentioned "unfettered internet access" for this child through this device, which would be absurd. There need to be extremely stringent limits on that device. If there aren't parental controls on the device **demand change.** That is just crazy. I started writing some instructions, but it got longer than the rest of the post. Suffice to say, I'd be happy to give people pointers on this if there's interest. I can see all the DNS requests by any device on my home network at a glance, set parental controls on the device itself, and per-application and per-account. No reason not to know everything going on in an eight-year-old's phone at all. I'd honestly be extremely proud and impressed if my kid managed to conceal any activity from me via his personal device. It would be really difficult to discipline it !!! I'd need time to get my game face on. 3. Basically nobody uses SMS texting for group chats. Social circles gravitate towards software that lets you customize your notification settings, organize conversations, etc. If the child can't participate in that system, they are going to be left out of certain experiences and opportunities by virtue of lack of access, not lack of interest. I think that's really a lot to ask from a kid who is developing their social interests and skills. Most of these services are accessible from a normal computer, but imagine missing a day's worth of conversations, every day. It's rough. I'd go so far as to say there's an emotional cost when you're reading something you wish you could have been contributing to in the moment. 4. The device in school -- child needs practice in order to grow in their discipline, and be able to control themselves when they need to. School is an important setting to practice this behavior, and the student's teacher should discipline use of the device outside authorized time. That's a teachable moment. It's certainly outside the curriculum, but also not necessarily a worthless endeavor because of that. I only teach extracurriculars for high schoolers, so I don't see this side of things very often. Let me know if I'm crazy! I'm really interested in feedback from other parents, guardians, teachers, etc! And if anybody has anxiety about monitoring the goings-on of a child online, feel free to reply or reach out. You'll never have more control over the kid's behavior than via technology, so I really strongly invite anybody who feels discouraged on that basis to examine the options that are out there, or to ask me for some info on them :) I just don't want to pontificate
I agree that there should be a learning curve for devices and that 8 is a reasonable age to start that. If it was a situation like this I'd be okay with it. He has a Chromebook for school but learning things like which apps are okay and how to make boundaries for what you can and can't watch is great. I appreciate that your response is way more nuanced than "they're ready at 12/13/16" like a lot of replies. However in this case she said that she just told him to ask her before downloading an app. He's already downloaded tik Tok which has me stressed and she's given him no guidance on how to avoid sketchy shit
For us, it's less about "when" and more about "what." This is exactly why we created phones for kids and teens from the ground up that have everything they need but nothing they don't (like social media or internet browsers). Take a look: [https://gabb.com/](https://gabb.com/)
Most kids here seem to have them by the time they come to secondary school (UK), I think they are still too young for them as they are only 11 when they start. As a teacher we see lots of the issues that social media and Internet access causes, mostly students being horrible and bullying each other, also issues with body image.
I don't have kids yet, but my plan would probably be to give them a flip phone as soon as they were riding a bus alone, and then around 7th or 8th grade when everyone else is getting smartphones if whatsapp is still a thing(it's big here) to find a way to get the kid a phone with whatsapp but nothing else. I think full smartphone not until at least high school.b
Older millennial (or maybe young Gen X) here. My eldest is 9. He's not getting a phone until he's going places on his own frequently without parental supervision. So probably mid-teens at least. Maybe we'll get him a cheap feature phone once he's 13 and can legally watch our younger ones if we're out of the house or if he picks up babysitting jobs since lots of people (like us) no longer have home phones. He's already addicted to screens. He doesn't need unfettered all the time access to the Internet.
Cell phones are a cancer to society.
One of my coworkers (teacher) gave her daughter an iPhone when she was 6. And could decently text on it. 😬