DO NOT give your kid a smartphone this Christmas

My eldest is 10. She won’t be getting a phone any time soon. Her group of friends don’t have phones though so I’m not under much pressure in that respect.

However there are many kids in her class who do have phones. Some of them have Facebook and instagram and crop up on my “people you may know” thing (not that I’d add them). There’s a lot of bullying and unkindness on the WhatsApp groups, apparently.

To be honest I hate to say it but here, it’s not the “nice” kids that have phones at 10. It’s the ones who are running around the town with no supervision like they are 14 and not 9/10.

It doesn’t have to be a smartphone for him to be able to contact you!

But all this technology still had some element of control. 9pm watershed for example, age ratings on video games. Plus you had to be in a certain place at a certain time to watch/engage with it.

The internet has no limits whatsoever. Children literally have access to the most vile, objectionable things you may ever imagine let alone physically be exposed to.

It’s really worrying that you think it’s just a few luddites getting their knickers in a twist about ‘new technology’. But, hey, you say to yourself whatever you need to say to make you feel better about it.

Yes good for YOU. But The majority of people do not work in tech and often think they are being entirely sensible and don’t realise that their child has found their way around the restrictions and they are none the wiser.

Said many the parent of a 10/11 year old.
14 upwards, that’s a whole new ball game.

I agree. But sadly its really hard to do. We took my sons off him for a good few months after some poor choices, but found he became isolated from his friendship group. All socialising happens online, meet ups are arranged in whatsapp groups etc. it needs some very tough legislation to tackle the problem.

DH works in tech. Good luck DS. If he beats DH an excellent career awaits.

And no one. But no one. Needs to be tracked.

Hilarious that the whole point of this post is missed on you. If we actually worked collectively and no one bought their kids a smartphone at 10 years old, then we wouldn’t have to worry about what they saw on ‘other kids’ smartphones.

People saying that kids are unable to function in today’s world without a smartphone is really sad. And to say they become more independent with one is downright ridiculous. They are gradually becoming the most dependent generation possible. Unable to tell the time, read a map, wait for a bus (or anything!) without knowing exactly when it will arrive or enjoy the moment without photo-documenting it. Dependency at its worst and most dangerous. This generation can’t cope without a phone to distract and entertain them. And the irony that we are all discussing this on social media rather than doing anything more meaningful is definitely not lost on me.

I know what my New Year’s resolution will be.

Smartphones are part of life now and I do feel that a child could be left out, at secondary school age, without one. I also like the tracking abilities once they're walking to school alone.

However, I do think no social media, parental control apps and phones downstairs at night are essential for sensible, safe use of smartphones for tweens and teens.

I don't think it's the phone that's the issue, more if there's a lack of control and boundaries around their use.

One person on here said that she knows her child is safe because she uses a particular parental control app. A quick google shows that that particular app is extremely easy to disable by a child without the parent realising. So that person does not know what their child is looking at.

Back in the real world... people are aware of what can be found on internet

but they also know how to parent their kids and supervise them. Having a smart phone doesn't mean they are allowed to be on it all night unsupervised in their room you know?

But MN is the place where sleepovers are banned, every single male is a potential rapist and murderer, so I am not sure anyone come here for sensible advice.

My friend has done a study on the way to check what kids are up to on their phone, we all have friends...

I know it isn't - it was one of the points I made above.

There's a lot that needs to be done regarding safety and improving that but also teaching and guidance about online safety to help equip kids with that same cynicism/savvy. And lots, esp older kids, are asking for that kind of guidance bc they have a lot of the same worries as their parents (esp on 'contact' from bad actors, seeing things they really don't want to and aren't' ready for - that's a big issue and has come up in surveys too, as has the wish to be more involved in the debates about it), but a lot less experience. I just would rather kids were given info and the savvy so they can be streetwise rather than the wrapping in cotton wool approach. It DOESN'T mean denial of the issues, heads in the sand, or that everything's totally fine, but more of a focus on the most harmful aspects. Much of which are extensions of the harmful aspects of life outside of the internet also. As I say, the digital arena is not going to go away, so what should be focused on so it is best managed.

Also nearly all parental control apps can be circumvented fairly easily so those people who are reassured by having them have no idea what their kids look at.

Yes, I suspect that those who think it’s fine for their 8 year old to have a smartphone and that anyone not on Snapchat will be bullied to death have no clue of what children actually look at. And they do not tell their parents - even if you think you have the closest relationship with your DC, they won’t tell you honestly what they have seen or gotten up to.

My friend has done a study for work about internet porn and it’s horrific. They are so so young when they become exposed to it and they grow up thinking it’s normal to send nudes and engage in anal sex.

My kids are young adults now. I feel they were in an experimental generation. Knowing what I know now I would not give a child under 14/15 a mobile phone. We know what damage these devices do. We have to do something.

Correlation isn't causation.

DH and I have a strange point of view. I'm older than him. I was actively online from age 18 meeting people. He was from age 14.

We've seen the dregs of some of this first hand. Absolutely awful stuff.

But equally we also know that real world connections are important and theirs huge questions about parenting.

In our 20s we were seeing 14 year olds having contact with adults in situations we thought dodgy. We raised questions when others didn't.

We are now in our 40s. DS is going to have to go some to get around our understanding of things and the experience we've had.

We have friends who remain at a state of naïvety that we had at 18 and 14. We are jaded and cynical.

We've lived this from analogue and digital worlds.

A lot of the actual research from psychologists, neurologists in the field doesn't agree with, say, Jonathan Haidt or the claims made (and many academics doing that research are parents themselves, don't forget, so it's not just "real parents v academics" - as has been posted above, Pete Etchells' recent book is good on this, and there are others). Many seem to be trying to point out, with increasing frustration, that a lot of the current claims being made about "smartphones" being the source of all evil, rewiring kids' brains etc, causing mental health issues in fact have a pretty shaky evidence base.

For instance, the evidence on direction of causality with mental health just isn't there, despite the time correlation, so no, we don't "all know this" to be true and it isn't what's "creating a mental health crisis" in itself; the evidence suggests it's more that kids with mental health issues are spending more time online partly BECAUSE they are not finding what they need offline. Correlation not being causality and all that. Banning smartphones wholesale isn't necessarily focusing on the most important problems in any case and is quite a puritanical approach. Is that going to magically make the entire digital world disappear or send us to what feels to me more like more of an ideal of some fictional past edifying time of childhood like the one we (allegedly) had back in the good old days?

It's worth noting that the same language (about addiction etc) has also been used for every technological/media advance for decades, if not centuries. Like radio was once met by the thinkers of the day and all over the then media expressing anxiety about - guess what? The dangers of addiction to it for children, that it was inescapable, was filling their heads with "addictive" unedifying dramas, disturbing sleep, invading their homes etc etc. Ditto comics. Ditto TV.

And of course it's all relative and it doesn't mean there aren't different and major challenges we all face with this (esp re quality of info, privacy breaches and social media) but smartphones ARE just devices - they aren't in fact the new smoking or heroin, neither of which has any demonstrable benefit beyond "pleasure" and that's debatable with smoking anyway. Not the case with smartphones. Not everything, or even "most" that can be found on them, is harmful junk or unedifying. Some obviously is. I don't think responsible parenting and child mental health was made completely impossible by radio, TVs and computers simply existing - but lots of people did in fact think so back in the day, even though we don't tend to agree looking back that they were correct. So how did we navigate those to prevent harms? Isn't it more to do with who is using which available content for what purpose?

It's not the smart phone it's poor parenting, unfettered access to the devices capabilities and unlimited Internet access that's the problem.

Do they not!!

I'm sure most do and it’s feeding into a mental health crisis amongst young people. Anxiety, depression, comparing themselves to others.. and not forgetting this changing gender rubbish

edit- and also what PP have said re bullying and sexual content. there’s more harm than good imo

I think there's value to that but I also think it doesn't necessarily mean that phones themselves are the problem.

Firstly we don't have a control to say how widespread none phone related bullying is. Is a problem in schools just transferring to another location.

In terms of accepting friend requests, I know lots of adults who accept requests from people they don't know. This is about education of both adults and children to a degree. It should be lower. But it raises questions about parenting as much as phones themselves.

I also think the sexual stuff to an extent was going on when I was a kid, though not on the same scale. It took different forms though.

Creeps will find a way to creep whatever the technology. They will target the weakest links and the most naive. It's almost an arms race. You can't stop.

You have to prepare your kids for the world not shield them from it. Because you can't.

You can do that without a traditional smartphone though... There are lots more options on the market now.

YANBU OP.

OP I'm with you. Clearly by the tone of responses on here people have their heads stuck in the sand as usual. Yes, phones are convenient. Yes, it's more convenient to be able to give in because everybody else at school has one. That doesn't negate the negative effects and the fact that society is glossing over these at our own future detriment.

Just so everyone here is aware, I had a laptop when I was about 9/10? My big brother had one so I wanted one! So I got one. Not many restrictions on it I must say but there were some. Within a couple of months I'd seen torture, beastiality, violent pornography, gore videos aplenty, and had been on chat websites. One man said to me and my childhood friend "I want to piss hot piss in your mouth". This is pre secondary school mind. By secondary school at 13 years old? I had seen EVERYTHING. I'd been pressured to send naked photos of myself and had done so, I'd bullied someone online which I would never had done in person but behind the veil is easier, I was reading about drugs (on a website that would probably get past restrictions by the way) and knew quite a few girls that age who had gone on webcam and been exposed with their photos all over Facebook. Mid teens? I was on cam with random strangers doing sexual things and so on, and been desensitised to gore and the like so much that it darkened the mind quite a bit.

My parents were decent but also wanted an easy life. I don't hold it against them, now I have my own I know it's easy to take that road. But that is a warning for anybody who is blase about phone and internet access - if you aren't restricting it completely, and constantly, and keeping tabs of everything your kids are up to, it's completely possible and almost a rite of passage for them to see or get involved in the things I described above. If you are one of the parents who doesn't pay it much mind, it's likely your child will end up exposed to at least some of what I've mentioned, if not all of it.

And that was 20ish years ago - today social media is 100x more of a sesspit. Now the stuff I had to go onto special websites to access, you get come up on your homepage on tiktok or insta if you so much as look at one single thing that can link into that kind of content.

Spare it a thought before you wave off early phone and internet access as "not a big deal".

My older two were part of a big study via secondary school - they were in a minority of kids with smart phones but no social media.

At end of study they sent a link out to research- basically they found earlier exposure to social media lead to more incidences of serious anxiety and depression in later teen years.

I do think people conflate a lot of things together as the often occur together but don't have to.

Most of this thread is people bemoaning the world being like it is with increased phone reliance and I have huge sympathy for that but my teens have to live in this world. Then parents of young kids saying well we plan this - and they may well find the plan and reality don't mix or they may find current push back means they can do what they want. Then rest saying this is how we navigated this - with as much teaching and mitigating as we could manage and our older teens seem okay.

DD2 school gone no phone - after years of pushing apps and increased phone usage- but they are still in hiccup phase pushing out messages in school day to kids via app they use then surprised kids can't see the notifications as no phones allowed. I had to get DD2 a watch - she used to use phone as in Y11 if you have an appointment they have to remember and get down to reception and the classroom clocks are frequently not working or wrong.

I'm not saying I agree or disagree with the op
I'm just saying...it's already gone to far in society
Tweeking round the edges by banning in schools or a few parents saying no ,won't make a difference .
Like when each family had a car ..but now each person has a car
Society moves on ,and it's no going to turn back