DO NOT give your kid a smartphone this Christmas

[Firey40]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDd86TftyNT/?igsh=MTZueGVicm1udDllNw==

The evidence is overwhelming.

Their brains are only young once.

We might not have known before….. but we know now.

STOP GIVING KIDS SMARTPHONES

How is that too late? Christmas is days away. Or don't worry, just screw up your child!

Absolutely. Comparisons with Japan only go so far because there are massive cultural differences.

To add to my point about it not being smart phones being the problem though, I would note that this started not with smart phones but with gaming and gaming communities.

If you are going to ban your smart phones you need to also ban technology across the board. One of the parents who is most vocal about smartphones in my son's parent group actively uses a tablet and gaming to pacify her son who has a lot of SEN needs rather than parent him. This included her demanding it during school when he starts playing up and the school are struggling with his behaviour which the school have agreed to.

I was part of the first wave of online communities and I know how obsessive and unhealthy they are. This was long before smartphones.

There's a real blind spot on this - the obsession with it being all about smartphones misses the point really. It's about social interaction being lacking and the inability to have an actual conversation. And that isn't a problem restricted just to smartphones. It's a much broader thing. Parents don't have the time to sit down and talk to their kids. Nor indeed the space - lots of people don't have a dining table. Meals are eaten in front of the TV.

The research points to well being related to sitting and eating together at a table. It doesn't matter about educational levels or economic levels. It's the act of having time and communicating.

The research points to well being related to how much time you spend outside. Again gaming and our car culture are part of the problem. People don't walk anywhere anymore and it's good for us on multiple levels.

I genuinely think it's too easy to blame smartphones. It's a wider, bigger problem of which smartphones are part of, but they are NOT the sole primary cause. This is a causation / correlation misunderstanding.

@Bontonbonbon
I do agree that there's absolutely issues with technology too, be it Japan or not, my point is just that in Japan case technology is the least of their problems, it might sound offensive, but compared to west they're really backwards socially in various aspects, smartphone isn't even a blip when it comes to the causes of their problems.

As for the last part you wrote:
"high cost of living + unrealistic career expectations + immersive online world= social collapse"

It's true that depending on how bad it is, immersing themselves in online world is absolutely one of the causes of declining birth rate, but I see that as a sympton of bigger issues, because they simply have no reason to focus on the real world due to their social issues, so they throw themselves online because it's all they can do.

I don't see why everyone gets so militant about this topic and tries to get everyone to do what they want.

If you don't want to give your child a phone, don't.

If you are happy to give your child a phone, do.

As I've said on this thread already, I'm very happy for my children to have phones. They use them responsibly, I monitor them, we discuss internet safety etc.. and I think my children's phones have been very positive for them. Overall, far more positives than negative.

I do wish people would judge less and just allow parents to parent their own way. The phone police are too much.

Japanese society is not 'backwards'. I have lived there and it's a fabulous country. It's different to the UK, they place value on different things, but it is absolutely not 'backward'. How incredibly offensive.

@RedToothBrush
I might rant a little so i won't quote you lol

I find funny you mentioned with gaming community, I believe you're half right, I say that because I believe you're technically wrong, it didn't start with gaming community, it's simply one place you can easily notice that issue.

A lot of the complaints about technology are not new, they started with the radio, yes I know how ridiculous that might sound lol, but everything changed with long range communication becoming widespread, first it was the radio, then it was tv, then videogame, then internet, then cellphone, then smartphone, all complaints done about smartphone are something that happened before with previous technology.

I feel the issue is that technology advanced too fast and society couldn't keep up, doesn't help that a lot of parents are lazy and use technology to raise their children, it started with tv and became more convenient with videogame, internet and then smartphone.

I feel that banning smartphone doesn't work because everyone around the child will have smartphone, yeah, your child won't have one, but what stops them from using their friend smartphone? All this does is create a forbidden fruit which they'll want even more.

Also, everyone against smartphone ignores one big issue, if you don't give your children one, don't teach them how to be responsible with it, they won't know what is good and bad about it, won't know what to avoid, which they'll inevitably find or even actively look into when they use their friends smartphone.

Pandora Box (actually a urn) is open and there's no closing, we simply won't go back to how things were, never ever, it won't happen no matter how many parents talk against smartphone because you're the minority.

I do agree that smartphone could be banned on school or something, or i don't know, teacher keeps the smartphone while class is in session so children can't use it.

I also agree that parental control on a smartphone can be useless if not used right, I feel we needed a smartphone model explicitly aimed for children so parents could really control what they have access to, but then that doesn't fix the issue that 99% of the children will have regular smartphone.

I also have to second that the issue is not smartphone, but a social issue, which I believe is two things.

One is that as I said technology advanced too fast, we have a past generation that grew up when smartphone was new and nobody knew how to use it properly, now their children are growing with smartphone even earler than they did in part because everyone having smartphone is simply the norm.

The other social issue I argue is because we are breaking down as a society, cost of living is rising, more and more both parents need to work, children are not having as much of a social life as before, no sitting together to eat, barely any time to be together, life being stressfull, leaving your child to be raised by tv, videogame and internet is just easier and more practical for far too many parents.

I feel that a lot of people, both young and adult, throw themselves at online world because they don't have much going in the real world, you can't fix one side without fixing the other.

Only alternative is try teach them to use smartphones respinsible, try give them a life outside of the internet, and hope for the best, because fighting against it simply won't work.

Also, a lot of our social issues is simply due to rampant capitalism going completely out of control, which are almost impossible to fix too, so either we prepare our children for the world or they won't have the tools to deal with society and technology.

In various aspects they absolutely are backwards, which is why arranged marriage is still a thing even today, especially when it comes to old and powerful families, just because they're great in various aspects doesn't mean they're not backwards in others.

Mental health is a perfect example of what I mean, they have a massive stigma against getting professional help, they're also extremely racist and xenophibic at times.

Get offended all you want, but in some aspects Japanese society is backwards like it or not.

Dh and I both have trackers on phones and our car. We both find it useful and reassuring, nothing creepy about it. My eldest daughter also wants a tracker she can keep with her at school (phone isn't allowed out of dormitory), as it makes her feel safer.

100% agree with you OP

One issue that I don't think nobody pointed, I feel biggest difference that makes people not agree is due to how each side raises their children.

I noticed that in particular due to some saying it's naive they can give children a smartphone, how parental control doesn't work and so on, which I have to admit there is some merit.

Parental control done poorly is effectively worthless, it's also useless if the boundaries and rules are not kept over how much access the children have to their phone.

Thing is, banning smartphones altogether is equality naive.

I ask this to every single people here against smartphone, and I want you to tell me honestly, when forbidding something ever worked?

All it does is create a tempting forbidden fruit, just stop and think to the times before the internet, when parents where more hands-on thanks to more free time and less stressing life, when families had more time to be close, many would forbid and outright demonize smoking, alcohol, drugs, forbid their daughters to see a boy they thought it was bad, forbid to see some tv program, read some book, videogames, the list is infinite.

And did that ever really work? In a few cases yes, but how many children actively looked for those things exactly because it was forbidden?

What a child can't get at home they'll get from their friends, the more forbidden the more they'll want it.

Both sides have some level of naivete, I argue you can't really be your children friend, sure you can be super close and have their complete trust, but at the end of the day you're still their parents, if you don't keep the a firm hand they'll simply do whatever they want cause there's no consequences, smartphone is a good example of that since many parents don't really control their children access even when they think they are.

But the people against are also naive because you all act like your children are morons with who you can't have a reasonable talk, to who you can't treat like a person that will listen to you, who will lie to your face constantly, they're your children, not criminals, if don't have a soft touch all you'll do is teach them to lie better and think of how to more easily break the rules without getting caught, banning smartphones is perfect example of that, banning is useless because effectively everyone around them have one, they will end up having access to it independent of the ban, you simply can't stop them from using a smartphone.

A child should be pushed aside with the left hand and drawn closer with the right hand, both sides make good points, but if it's not a balanced approach the children will only suffer in the long run, banning things rarely worked in the past, it sure as hell won't work now.

Both sides have some level of naivete

excellent post!

I have just finished reading The Anxious Generation (really recommend it!) and caught up on on Swiped: The School That Banned Smartphones (bit of a misleading title) and tbh I am bloody terrified of my daughter getting on TikTok/insta etc . Really hoping they are banned in schools by time she reaches secondary.

It's the main problem that people aren't parenting.

Letting anyone spend 5 or 6 hours a day on a phone, whether child or adult is a really bad thing.

As parents our job is to help our children learn how to become adults. And in a modern society that includes putting sensible parental controls on all devices and limiting their usage.

At the same time as we've seen a rise in smartphones we have also seen a decline in community. Part of this is due to changing work patterns - more people are working longer. Women are not staying home. Community led activities have lacked people to run them as a knock on effect and/or they've become too expensive to run. So there isn't anything else for kids to do constructively and even playing out on the streets is frowned on - in part I think because people don't all know each other so there's not a sense of everyone looking out for the kids / knowing who the kids are. And again car culture means the roads are busier.

This means if you take away the smartphone or even the gaming, what's left for kids?

They can't play out. There's more gangs and drugs which we didn't have to the same extent a couple of decades ago. They haven't got clubs and youth groups to go to, which used to exist. Activities that exist are expensive and not local - you have to travel to get to them. Parents can / won't run stuff anymore. Even libraries have closed down so it's more difficult to borrow and book and read!

Kids often don't have anything else but to hang around bored or on phones / games.

What you see is the most well adjusted kids / teens are those that have parents who have facilitated them 'doing stuff'. Even in less well off communities. Parents who have helped run activities tend to have kids who are better able to cope.

I think it comes down to this:
Smartphones should be an aid to communication. They are an exceptional tool. But they are not a substitute for communication.

During lockdown our circle of friends did a regular zoom call where we did lots of activities and we had a whale of a time. BUT it wasn't a substitute for going to the pub or to each others houses and actually TALKING to each other.

If you have a smartphone/game, make sure you make time and you still DO things. As you say it's pandoras box. You can't rewind that. We have to learn to use tech responsibly and in a healthy way. Used well and effectively it's great.

I think it's probably more useful to teach healthy tech habits - just like food and drink.

And like alcohol and prohibition, I don't think bans work. Given that you can buy a smartphone for £35 and there are many kids who can get hold of that amount of money, if they really really want a smartphone they will get one if they are banned from having them.

I genuinely think that people want to ban because it seems a magic bullet. But it's a reflection of wider social issues caused by growing inequality in society on various levels (not necessarily just economic). People are working longer hours and kids are in paid childcare more - they are time poor. There's plenty of parents don't want to parent and won't say no to their kids.

The way things are marketed has become much more aggressive too. Not just through online stuff but also in the way things are framed through deliberately invoking peer pressure. Even if your kid isn't on social media and isn't shown social media they are still going to be subject to the stuff about 'the right trainers' we had as kids.

I dunno. I feel over 25 years into this because both DH and I were in online communities that long ago. We experienced much of these coming pressures in our mid and late teens that our peers have not - we feel disconnected from people our own age who haven't had this experience. We know it's a wild west. We know a lot of the bad stuff and we want DS to not be exposed to as much as we've seen / seen others experience. HOWEVER we also are well aware of the Pandoras box effect and know you can't escape it.

I don't just think banning works. The question that arises from restrictions is what replaces it - that comes back to my point about community and activities. The kids need alternatives available to do otherwise it returns to hanging around the park with vapes, alcohol, sex and drugs anyway and I fail to see how that's really much better. No one did surveys that accurately monitored how much of that was going on in the 80s and 90s did they? Indeed in some ways the fact it's now an online phenomena means we can perhaps quantify and measure antisocial / harmful behaviours in a way we couldn't before. Ask the question: If we took every mobile phone away from teens tomorrow would we solve the problems of feelings of isolation, bullying and crime? With nothing else to replace that void, you don't stop the social issues - you just get them to shift about and change how they manifest.

If we want to 'fix' this, it will require time, effort and money invested into young people. I really don't think there's a cat in hells chance of anyone raising that point politically at this time. Kids are the bottom of the priority list and no one sees free facilities for teens as a cost effective or worthwhile thing to spend time or money on. Meaningful change need to reflect that.

So yeah, block off time which is device free as a family. Eat together. Meet up in person. Go for a walk rather than drive. Take up a new hobby. Don't just preach that smartphones are evil because you miss half the fucking point.

I agree with the points you make @RedToothBrush

It's about the whole of people's lives and the importance of communication, socialising in person, community, exercise and sports etc. so that online activity is only a small part of people's lives.

That was my point earlier about lockdown emphasising problems and adding to them because there were some months when it was very difficult for a lot of people to have lives outside of the online.

Yes, my DS had a smartphone when he went to secondary school, but he also spent a lot of time outdoors, enjoyed sports and exercise, his play station was only for linking games with friends he knew at school, and we spent a lot of time chatting. By the time lockdown came round, he was 19 and working. I know from friends who had DC a few years younger that they really struggled during this time, and also DS's friends who had been at university at the time.

@RedToothBrush
Excellent points, I'll try to add to them instead of repeating anything lol

I feel it's a lot of small problems intertwined together that just make things even worse.

Example, you mentioned community activities, community not having money, both parents not having time due to work, gang, children not having things to do, it's pretty much a domino effect or a cascading failure of our society due to capitalism.

Cost of living raises so father works more, soon mother works too, that means child barely interacts with them during the day.

Due to cost of living people can't use money in the community + they don't even have time for the community, so that goes down the drain.

Due to parents not being around a lot of children can't go out to meet their friends, so what they'll do at home? Videogame, internet, tv, that kind of thing.

If they do go out there's issue of gangs or worse, creeps since thanks to the internet you can easily find information about someone, find where they live, bait them through chats to meet and so on.

The children that do grow adjusted? A lot of times it's because someone was around, either because mother didn't work or a GP was around, though of course a lot of children grow up alone fine too.

All lockdown did was speed up a issue that was inevitable in the long run.

Like you said smartphones are a tool just like a gun, they can be dangerous so we need to teach children to use it right, but it's too easy of a scapegoat to blame for all things wrong in the child life.

About marketing, that's not even new, how many decades capitalism tells us that we need to buy the best and newest of everything we see, otherwise we're failures in life?

Honestly, you can't even blame it too much into poor parenting, how can you give proper parenting when we can barely manage in this economy that only gets worse? And will seemingly get even worse due to certain political parties in US fucking up the whole world.

Only way for us to make things better is if we can go back to have a community, be part of your children life, go play outside with them, that kind of thing that was the norm decades ago.

Problem is, how can we do that in this economy?

Really, people love to scream about political parties, religion, woke and so on, but the source of all the problems we have right now boil down to rampant capitalism, and unfortunately we are just too used to buy our happiness to really make much of a change at this point.

Either we'll have some massive changes in a better direction at some points or we're going straight into capitalist dystopia or society colapse.

Better start digging my survival shelter / bunker I guess lol

Parents don't have the time to sit down and talk to their kids. Nor indeed the space - lots of people don't have a dining table. Meals are eaten in front of the TV.

Family I grew up in it was on Sunday lunch always eaten together - DH was similar. With us it was because we argued about missing TV shows - tech moved on and since I was pg with first we've been able to pause TV - so that was a non issue with our kids. Our kids have eaten more meals with us than ever did with our parents.

We've also done that modern parenting thing that so often slated on here as many more days out doing stuff - it often derided as unnecessary on here - but it meant we were out doing things together as a family not slumped in front of TV like in my childhood. As we don't drive it was often time outside.

Post covid coincided with exam years and then cost of living - so we do this so much less and as a result spend more time in house but often less together.

So I to agree with many of @RedToothBrush points.

• *We've tried to spend more time with the kids perhaps because our parents were time poor and struggling with that days tech TV - and I know my parents tried to have Mum around more and do more than their parents did for similar reasons.

I think smart phones are a scape goat - the are a tool that yes is often misused.

Part of the reason I worry about the bus and train and people advocating for no smart phone for under 16 is because I then think it will be harder for under 16 to get the much needed independence and freedom of movement in some areas and it will just worsen infantilization which I think is also contributing to mental health issues.

It’s not the phones that most people need to be independent these days as previous posters stated ( teens are learning these skills). Tech and devices have a place in modern society but we really do need to think about the negative impact.

it’s the time spent on any device from ages as young as months old watching videos and then social media and so on. That is the problem.

Ive worked with children and young people my whole working life ( 30 years nearly) and im in no doubt that devices/screens etc when used excessively are a detriment to a child/young persons overall development. Play: physical, roleplay, small world, arts and crafts, social and communication etc have been replaced by staring at a screen for hours on end. Playing a game on a tablet is not the same as physical play. Going out for a meal with headphones and a tablet is not learning social and communication skills.

Social media is doing terrible things to children and young peoples mental health. The amount of parents i meet that are proud their 8/10 year old child has xxxx followers on an app is scary!

Edited to add this was occurring way before lock downs ( i’m aware of the issues they caused) but they are not the sole issue surrounding this subject. I met children 15 years ago being bullied on social media/msn etc it’s not a new thing it is however getting worse

@trivialMorning
You mentioned infantilization, something that comes to mind sometimes is how in moderm world we see ages different compared to the past.

In the past, not even necessarely far, like 100 to 200 years ago, you reached 18 you was effectively an adult and treated as such, hell in many places before that age you was already treated differently and expected to act maturely

Nowadays? Person can be like 25 and still treated as a teenager, hell some are 30 and most people don't see it that bad if they're still clearly childish and act as a teenager, though of course that varies by places.

I feel that kind of infantilization is also true for children and teenagers, of course children are children and that's not up to discussion, but a lot of people act as if children are brain dead morons who at any point will have their life ruined by some eeeeeevil influence.

Videogame is a perfect example of that, how much hysteria there was that videogames would turn children violent?

How much hysteria there was that Pokemon and such was gonna make children satanic?

I feel way too many people don't treat their children as being capable, coddle them way too much than necessary, sure our world is full of dangers and it's hard to protect our children, but I do feel our children are smart than most people gives them credit for.

Which brings us back to the issue of smartphone, if we don't raise our children to actually use their brain, to be responsible, to manage themselves, of course they'll become addicted lol

Look, overall this is the same thing as anything highly addictive that is banned for under 16s/ 18s. Smoking and alcohol in themselves are not a problem if you have good parents. Because those parents will make good decisions to help support their kids.

The issues is the parents making bad decisions. Not always because they are bad people. It is often a combination of ignorance, desperation, over work and, in some few cases, actual neglect.

The government legislates because the decisions of those people have a net negative knock on effect on the whole of society via antisocial behaviour and damage to health that costs the NHS money.

The same is true for the rising phone/ social media/ gaming addiction in children and teens. The government will be forced to legislate because poor parental decision making it is costing so much time and money to the police, the NHS, Social Services and schools. This thread makes it clear the quite a lot of people have not the first clue about what really goes on. Expect legislation like the one about the come i to force in Australia fairly soon.

@Tsama

You’re wrong. As someone who works with teens I can tell you that you are wrong about this being imagined hysteria. It is an overwhelming problem that affects huge numbers of kids. But it is not well publicised because kids and families are often too ashamed to tell people when something dark happens. The few stories you hear are the tip of quite a fucking enormous iceberg.

Find someone who is a pastoral lead at any school and they will tell you hundreds of very real stories which will shock you.

Laughable. Won’t have the slightest chance of actually working effectively in Australia and most certainly not here. Not for the foreseeable anyway and not unless there were something extreme and radical to happen and society was to reverse to a time tech wise 20 years ago.

Thanks, my kids will be keeping theirs.

Did you know, it's possible to have a smart phone without social media? Such as instagram?

@Bontonbonbon
Comparing smartphones to smoking and alcohol is honestly a riot.

Also, goverment legistate? Keep dreaming, this situation will never, change, never ever, goverment will never try to do anything about smartphone and children because it's literally everywhere and vast majority of parents won't accept the change.

As for the hysteria, yeah it's imagined, same hysteria happened with for example Dungeons & Dragon, with rock and roll and many other stuff.

There's always something to blame for why the children are doing bad, it's never the parents fault lol

@WhiteLily1 @MoreIcedLattePlease

Thanks for spectacularly proving my point! Parents can’t be trusted to make the best decisions for something that affects society as a whole. Cheers.