To be a parent without a smartphone?

[AccidentalLuddite]

[This thread isn’t about children having smartphones. As DC get older I will need to understand more about that, but I’m not there yet!]

I don’t have a smartphone, never have. It’s just never something I’ve needed or wanted enough to be worth the expense.

DP doesn’t either. We have basic mobile phones for calls and texts, and a house admin computer on the kitchen table for everything else. This works for us.
But we worked out how to do the essentials of life before smartphones existed. Our DC are primary age and we recognise life is very different for young people now.

I wonder if we’ve unintentionally become the equivalent of the family without a TV in the 80’s?

I don’t want my kids to miss out on anything worthwhile. Its only come up a handful of times so far when I’ve not been able to join things like whatsapp groups. But we’ve not missed out on anything from not being on those and I’m glad not to be part of the drama they can attract.

What might DC miss out on if their parents don’t have smartphones? Could us not having them limit their opportunities? Anyone else in a similar position?

In case it's helpful, you can get WhatsApp on laptops. There's WhatsApp web, or potentially also apps/extensions. Am not 100% sure. But I also gravitate more towards a computer than a phone, and found being able to see messages on the laptop super helpful.

Reading between the lines I suspect you see not having a smartphone as a positive thing you’re doing. Perhaps slightly smug. Smartphones aren’t positive or negative, it’s how you choose to use them. Imo they’re incredibly useful and I wouldn’t be without mine. Was waiting for a bus at the weekend and could see on my phone it was delayed and by how many minutes. I can plan my walking route to a destination and follow it in real time so I don’t get lost (I’m of an age where I didn’t have any kind of phone until
well into my 20s, had to visit homes for my job , sometimes in the evenings in the dark and often got lost). I have my calendar on there. There are so many uses, including apps for school that you will need. No need to completely distance yourself from technology just for the sake of it.

You still need a smartphone to get WhatsApp for web.

I prefer the large screen and full sized keyboard of a laptop, but I have used my phone a lot this weekend as we are away - train tickets, checking platforms and train delays, hotel booking, Google map to find my way around an unfamiliar city and to find the nearest Boots and the restaurant we are in last night, Google to check museum opening times (only to find that the one I wanted to visit is closed for restoration).

I will use my phone to check the trains home tomorrow.

And I have used it this weekend to mumsnet 😁

Oh, and I have used it to check our CCTV at home.

You can print out the ticket with the QE code on it and take the hard copy

If you have a printer.

@RampantIvy I thought so too, at least initially to set it and up and then sporadically to keep it linked. But someone up thread said you only needed a number to use WhatsApp on a laptop, something I haven't verified. I know that wouldn't work for WhatsApp web, but perhaps for the desktop apps/extensions or whatever. Requires research. But either way, you wouldn't need your smartphone daily to use WhatsApp, so if your goal was reduction in use then that's absolutely possible. I've managed about 6 weeks without my smartphone but still used WhatsApp.

Arguably everything you've listed for this weekend is optional. Way more convenient to know your platform/delays before you arrive, have a map in your pocket, not need to invest in a printer and use paper to have proof of bookings etc, but you could still choose to do all those things without a smartphone. It's all choice.

@BrightGreenPoet

I went to see Wicked in January. They wouldn't accept printed QR codes. Phone only.

I would say it’s virtually impossible to live a modern life, especially with kids, without one.
yes you are very much the equivalent of the 80s family who refuse to have a tv.

A lot of the things we use phones for are optional and/or unnecessary (including using MN!) but using googlemaps which gives you an arrival time or updates where there are delays and re-routes if needed, is something that potentially can't be planned in advance. Of course that is optional too but it's pretty useful if you have to be somewhere at a set time

For me a smartphone has been essential as the school does all contact through an app now, gone are the days where letters get sent home, every permission form is also done via the app so if I didn't have the app I wouldn't be able to give consent for things like school trips

Arguably everything you've listed for this weekend is optional. Way more convenient to know your platform/delays before you arrive, have a map in your pocket, not need to invest in a printer and use paper to have proof of bookings etc, but you could still choose to do all those things without a smartphone. It's all choice.

I disagree. Our local station is not manned, and the ticket machines don't always work, and you get fined if you get on the train without a ticket, plus my railcard is on my phone.

I would have had to walk quite a long way to find out that the museum was closed.

Not having a smartphone would have been a PITA, and I don't choose to make life more difficult for myself.

Mumsnetting was optional though.

For goodness’ sake. I was born in 1971 and didn’t get a smartphone till later than you but I never needed to be patronisingly treated like a doddery old pensioner fumbling their way through new tech.

And I was born in 1958 and know how to use a smartphone and a laptop and lots of other tech.

My aunty was born in 1938 and has both laptop and smartphone. My mum born in 1935 had laptop, smartphone and iPad!!

I don’t get the impression the OP isn’t perfectly tech-savvy. She’s just choosing not to have a smartphone.

Wow, that seems ridiculous. The code is the code, and if they're worried about confirming the actual buyer it can be copied to someone else digitally just as easily (or easier) than on paper. I can't understand why they would do this.

I've had a few occasions where gig tickets have only been purchasable using the Dice app. I've chosen not to go to the gig, and let the venue/promoter know why.

This isn't just Ludditism. Technological solutions have always overlapped and involved several different ones being available for any problem, and if someone wants my custom it's up to them to provide sufficient options to suit me. I do use a smartphone, but I really resent having to install a specific app determined by somebody else just to deal with one particular retailer or contact.

I don't think that analogy makes sense. I never had a TV from the mid-eighties onwards and it never made it "impossible to live a modern life". In fact it made little difference to anything else, I just didn't watch TV.

I am going to the RHS flower show this week. I have had to install a new app for my ticket. There was no other easy way of getting a ticket.

I tend to resent the information harvesting and loss of privacy that goes along with the apps more.

Plus the fact that a lot of the apps are actually rubbish and don't work.

A lot of these apps demand all sorts of access to data. I think we need more phone protection and also more government regulation to stop this.

Unfortunately businesses will only provide alternative payment options if it is worth their while. Which it often isn't.

I think I have at least 4 parking apps on my phone as different areas seem to use different ones.
The machines weren't working at my hospital last visit so I had to download yet another one to pay for parking. There was no other option.

Reading through your responses OP this feels like it’s all about you and what you want. I get that…to an extent. This is going to start to heavily impact your DC though. At that point, IMO, it’s selfish. I couldn’t manage things like Cubs, Scouts, football, drama without a smartphone as that’s how it’s all communicated. Maybe at first it will be fine but it will have an impact and that impact is likely to be negative.

I had to get an app for Wimbledon tickets

I've been to several restaurants where you order by qr code, although obviously that's a choice to go/stay there. (I don't like being asked - when ordering - if I want to leave a tip. At the point of ordering on a QR menu, I've not yet had any food or any service)

The machines are actually incredibly expensive, require maintenance and cash removal/ticket roll replacement and are prone to vandalism.

It only takes one idiot teenager to shove some gum in a coinslot and they can be put out of action for days.

It's no wonder the businesses using them want to replace them.

I certainly get why they would want to phase out the machines.

The parking centres around me have signs saying you can pay via the app OR just phone a number and pay by credit card. Is this not common? And would it be that much trouble for all of them to do it? The process is still automated (a recorded voice on the other end leading you through options), and one could do it even with a dumbphone.

My child recently went to a party over getting her class whose mum isn't on the class WhatsApp group. The kids been at the school for a year and I wasn't even aware of his existence. Social things would have skipped him entirely because I wouldn't have even known he wasn't included.

If I was doing an all-class party this child would have been the only one (presumably unless there are other hidden kids) that wouldn't have been invited.

Any last minute casual invites like 'anyone up for the park this weekend' will be missed, and where you are invited it's because the parents went out of their way to communicate with you in a different way.

Thanks again all who have contributed to this thread. I’ve been thinking about the main points I’ve got from it.
Personal convenience, parent admin, fear of missing out seem the main drivers for needing one that have come up. There have been a few examples of things that can be only done with smartphones but not many. WhatsApp seems the biggest, but my experience where I am is not being on the groups doesn’t make a difference.

It’s also been interesting to think a bit more about why I don’t have one. I don’t think I realised I was so unusual. I think its a few reasons:
-Through my work I’m aware how your digital footprint can be used by others so I try to minimise it.
-I don’t like the risk of having a lot of important things in one desirable stealable object.
-I think it’s easier to fall for scams when you are doing things quicker on a smaller screen.
-I prefer using a larger computer screen.
-I don’t like multitasking when I’m on the go, I’d rather be fully present for what I’m doing, and if I’ve got downtime when I’m waiting its a treat to get to sit and read my book.
-I get genuine pleasure from using physical things - it’s amazing a smartphone can be a map, compass and identify flowers, but I love poring over a map, thumbing through my grans wildflower book and using my dads old compass.
-I had a work blackberry 15 or so years ago. I found it stopped me being ‘present’ when I had it. I’m sure I’d be no different to anyone else if I had a smartphone and it would suck in my attention when with other people. This is probably my biggest reason.