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

Smart Phones are incredibly dangerous for children. To the parents that don’t realise this, you will soon.
I’ve seen devastation first hand that social media has caused in many different ways, from lives lost, to extreme depression in young teens.
The stats are legit no matter the source.
Kids with constant access to smart phones will have limited attention span, limited ability to communicate or pick up a phone to make an appointment. Struggle with future jobs because they won’t know how to behave as they spent their informative years behind a screen. The next generation is going to see a worrying amount of struggles as teens transition to adult hood.
I personally wouldn’t hire someone who lacked the ability to communicate, think for themselves and excessive entitlement confidence without the capability to back it up in real life.

I agree with the principle but so ironic that you have referenced an instagram post...

As a heavily tech household I fully agree. I remember the day before and the day after the day before I owned my first smart phone.

I have only once experience being without it since and life changed forever. For those short two days while it was being fixed it was like being unplugged from some kind of dream, everyone around me was plugged in, addicted.

You can get watches that can make calls and also track them.

I would say that it is paranoid rather than normal or sensible. The chances of anything happening to them is tiny but what you are doing, every day, is telling them that you don't think they can handle the World.

Just put limits on it. The world is tech based now. Local buses only issue passes via a phone, class homework is discussed on WhatsApp. All the kids socialise in high school via Snapchat and WhatsApp. I have no issue with tech. Just parent them and have conversations about it all.

At some point, like with alcohol or anything else they will be old enough to get their own and you won't have any control over it then. Better to introduce at an agreed upon age and guide while you still can.

Yes they did because there was a pay phone on every corner to use on an emergency. They are gone now. And it’s not a race to the bottom those children were more at risk.

Yes, sort of. But I suppose that to reach the teach addicts you have to advertise where they spend their time.

Yeah which is why I said that having a brick phone for calls is fine. Why do you need to be able to log in to an app to see the precise location of your child?
And despite being “more at risk” those kids STILL didn’t get abducted or killed in anything other than minuscule numbers. So they weren’t really at risk.

No, still planning on giving my ten year old a smartphone for Christmas. He's been perfectly sensible with the 'dumbphone' he's had the past year.

I will be drilling into him about internet safety, including never clicking on random links from Instagram...

@Firey40

*Right:

”I’m an alcoholic, so I decided what is best is to make sure my children are given easy, unlimited access to alcohol, and I’m making it extra special by wrapping up a big bottle of Premium Vodka and giving it to them for Christmas! Then they’ll know how special it is ☺️

Given that my life has been made worse by alcohol, and I have suffered as a result, I feel the best course of action for my beloved children is to do exactly the same as me”*

Explains a lot. Have you already started drinking this morning?!

There are plenty of apps you can use to restrict their access and restrict the time they spend on them. If used properly they can have good advantages, kids can set themselves reminders and use apps to organise themselves with homework and their school timetable. Whilst at the same time restricting social media, video/reel streaming, and restricting how much time they can have on them. Better the devil you know, if you give them a brick phone they'll probably just hide things from you going forward.
A much better approach is to safeguard them from the outset

I had access to phones when I was a child. They were public phone, you could use cash or card. They don't exist anymore.

Things have changed, people have to learn to cope in today's environment.

They don’t need constant access to the internet though. Most people rarely use their smart phone as an actual phone to call people

My 11 yo daughter has an old school nokia brick phone for that. It's great.

OP, you do you.

Some of us actually parent.

What neither you or I can parent, are other people access to smart phones. If you are not teaching the basics to your own kid and it's all a novelty for them, how exactly are you dealing with their access to things on friends phones?

Unless you are homeschooling and the kids are never allowed out of your sight?

So you block the browser so that they can only use apps you are happy for them to use.
Buying them a brick phone is just because you are too lazy to set up safeguarding properly on a smartphone.

We were concerned about social media and web access. We got our son a smart watch when he was ready to walk to/from junior school. It allows tracking/calls/texts but avoids the stuff that worried us.

You’re deluded if you think the parental controls work properly. You have to be so vigilant - many of the games apps allow you to click through to unrestricted safari even when the device is locked down.

How on earth does “if you give them a brick phone they'll probably just hide things from you going forward”. Sounds a bit like “if you don’t buy them branded trainers, you’ll ruin their lives”.

why do you think having a phone means they actually USE constant internet access?

Kids are busy! I am yet to see one getting his mobile phone out in the middle of a football pitch or a dance lesson. Any kind of phone banned during school hours are of course fine by me.

The trackers are brilliant. Parents use to hang around for ages waiting for school buses etc, now we just check where kids are when they are on their way back from various matches and tournaments (that's 2 to 3 times a week, it adds up).

But why does it need to be a smartphone? If I don’t want them to be on any apps at all, what’s the point of having one? And also there are ways around parental controls.

OP is not wrong. That said my eldest does have a smart phone, however it is heavily restricted (taken for travel to and from school only) and has to ask permission to use it outside of these times. Time limits, no social media at all bar WhatsApp, photos are shared with me, a child’s account, parental controls etc.

so so many of their friends do not have any of the above. They’re regularly on it until the early hours and quite frankly it’s nothing short of alarming.

In 2024, kids who are travelling independently to and from school will struggle without a smartphone. Bus passes, train tickets, maps, timetables and live train/bus running info are all on apps. I also say having life360 (tracker) is valuable for peace of mind (as well as location it shows battery power so if they are not replying you know why and are not panicking.) Also listening to music and reading on Kindle during a journey are both done on smartphone.

It's down to parents to restrict usage via software or physically taking phones away. My teens have tine-limited usage, bedtime blocker and app blocker. They can't download new apps without me checking and don't have social media. I also physically check their phone (search history, photos, messages) for anything untoward and they are left downstairs overnight. It's not all or nothing, you just have to actually do some parenting.

why do you think having a phone means they actually USE constant internet access?

Cool well then they don’t need it then. And i don’t mind waiting 15 mins for a late bus. I can also text them on their brick phone to ask where they are - genius.

I would have preferred if smartphones had never been invented, sat nav , TV and computer is fine lol, but unfortunately we use our smartphone too much. I never used to be addicted to a phone until I got my first smart one. Now I find it so hard not to scroll for something to do within hands reach. Thanks for posting I think I will be making some changes for 2025