Not having a smartphone

[aNameyName]

Thinking ahead a year or two to having a teenager: My child is already in a small minority in not yet having their own smartphone, and since reading 'The Anxious Generation' by Jonathan Haidt, I'm minded to hold out against giving my child a smartphone until they can get one themselves, if they want to because the massive developmental opportunity costs were shocking when laid out so plainly.

If you have teenage children with a dumb phone or no personal phone at all, what are the worst negative impacts for your teen of not having a smartphone? Has your position on smartphones affected your relationship with your child? At what age / event do you intend to give your child a smartphone, if at all? What other factors should I consider in weighing up if / when to give them a smartphone?

I would say that you were effectively making them deaf to a large part of their own world.
It is how they communicate.

Watching with interest. I’ve read that book too and will have difficult decisions to make in about 2 years!

So far my plan is a basic phone at age 13 if pushed and hold out as long as possible from there.

We've told DD no phone at all till 15 but she hasn’t questioned this yet. She’s 10 and no one, or very few, in her class seem to have one yet which makes it a hell of a lot easier so far.

This. Unfortunately it's how teens communicate. It's hard enough being a teen without being unable to fit in with peers.

Far better to give a smart phone while they're young enough to be influenced by you and train them in using it. Imagine suddenly getting a smart phone at 16 when you've managed to buy it yourself and having had no experience of it before!

What’s critical is not making her the only one of her peers without… https://smartphonefreechildhood.co.uk/ especially at primary school…

You're not wrong in your thinking OP, but in reality you'd be denying your teen a tool that's (sadly) needed to get by in the world. It's how we/kids communicate, buy bus tickets, etc. Some of my kids home and school work is done on phones.
The only way to navigate it is by having clear and strong boundaries around usage.
We have a much stricter policy than most. Our now 16 yr old hands his phone over to us at 10pm as he takes himself off to bed, it's never been an option to take it to his room 🤷
Sure, both our boys probs have way to much screen/tech/phone time but they are pretty good at self regulating BECAUSE they have just plain never been allowed to be all consumed by their devices. It's hard, but doable.
Good luck!

Edited to add, mine didn't get smart phones til ages 11/a mmer before high school.

Dd13 has a brick - we’ve told her at 16 she can have a smartphone. She’s got loads of friends and is very sociable. I can’t think of any downsides!

My DD is 12 and in Year 7. She has an iPhone but she doesn’t have access to the internet (she used to but we removed it) and no social media at all (including WhatsApp). It’s been a good compromise as she can still use the smartphone functions (maps, spotify, email, homework apps, etc) and she doesn’t feel left out - but she doesn’t have access to the damaging bits. It took a couple of goes to fully disable safari but it’s possible.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckmm2nrlem2o

I totally understand your perspective, but the reality is that these days most social arrangements out of school will be made via group chat, WhatsApp etc. and you risk your kid being isolated. My experience has been interesting as mine are now adults aged 20-30 so the age differences mean I have experienced no mobile phone use at school age (nobody had them as too expensive), the transition from straightforward mobile phones to smart phones and with my youngest most people having an iPhone or similar by high school.

I know that some of my youngest’s friends whose parents felt like you were regularly excluded from events, not necessarily maliciously, more the kids couldn’t get their head around the fact that they couldn’t access whatever social media was being used to make arrangements. I haven’t seen a physical, or e-mail, party invite since my youngest was around 13. My strategy has always been open communication and boundaries around tech use. Phones out of bedrooms by a certain time etc. non negotiable (I won’t argue with teenagers). I also enforced age limits for things like FB (not that any self respecting teenager would use FB any more). It’s tough being a parent who cares!

Unfortunately a phone is part of life and it is how teenagers keep connected. My ds got one on starting secondary school. The main rule he had to abide by was the phone stayed downstairs after lights out and luckily at his school the minute he crossed the school threshold he was not allowed to take his phone out, if he did it was taken away and a parent had to collect at the end of the day. There are various controls on modern phones you can implement but it is also about teaching them how to use it responsibly.

I don't think it's the smartphone itself that is the issue but certain apps, platforms and potential unfettered access to the Internet.

As others have said, having a smartphone is important for independence, eg accessing transport timetables, schoolwork, making arrangements with friends etc.

So I think the answer is giving a smartphone with a set of conditions attached. Eg phone goes in a drawer after 10pm, apps can only be downloaded with parental permission, restricted data, parental controls on the WiFi etc.

If I could go in a time machine I would have been a lot stricter when I let my son have a smartphone. But yesterday, off his own back he told me he had decided to set a time restriction on TikTok. He seemed to be very aware of the potential negative effects on his attention span. I think young people are gradually coming to the realisation that some of their phone habits are not healthy. I think we need to learn from this first generation of digital natives.

I think you need to narrow down exactly what you don't want them accessing.
Unsupervised access to Internet... they will need Internet access for homework, so make sure you have time daily and a device for this.
Social media... can be blocked, but ensure they do have someway of contacting friends

Mine are allowed to have 1-1 and small group chats on WhatsApp but no Instagram, tiktok or Snapchat. They can use any homework or learning apps... some of the homework works better on phone than laptop apparently! Phones off by 8pm. Not allowed them at school.

DD1 doesn't like group chats on WhatsApp, she finds them overwhelming. But she does miss out on things sometimes as her friends have to remember to update her on plans individually.

So, my son had a "brick" phone from 13. He also had his own laptop computer for school that year. The phone didn't get used much, he did communicate with friends via computer apps.

We hadn't intended postponing getting him a smartphone till 16 (I think his sister had hers for her 15th birthday). But covid intervened and somehow that's what happened (ie smartphone as birthday present during summer holidays just after GCSEs). Within a few hours of him having his phone, his friends had renamed their group chat "X has a phone!". I did feel a little guilty ...

My daughter changed schools for yr 9 (boarding senior school) and benefitted significantly from not having a smartphone that year - there was a lot of pressure on some of her friends that she was somewhat outside through not having that direct always-on access.

Unfortunately I have to agree that waiting till 16 isn't ideal either. I don't currently know what the answers should be, although making sure they expect to have their phones monitored quite closely at first (for months at least), and keeping really good lines of communication open, are critical if you can possibly manage it. (teenagers ... good intentions aren't always enough sadly!)

And of course, all the stuff like maps and bus tickets and so on are important to developing their independence now compared with what we did when growing up.

The interesting thing is that when Jonathan Haidt talks about no phone before high school, he's talking about age 13/14. In the UK you're talking 11- it's way too young.

DH is a housemaster of a junior boys' house at a boarding school (age 13) so we see day in, day out the problems that social media and smartphones cause for this age group. It's made me resolute that my DDs won't be having SM until the mid-teen years. I like @justabigdisco's compromise.

I wonder what her perspective on this would be.

My neighbour could have written your post. In reality we have her dd round her often moaning about how she's left out of arrangements because she can't join chats and see what her friends are planning. She's made herself an account on something and logs on on the family pc sometimes without her parents knowing.

@SuperSharpShooter Does some homework specifically require a smartphone, i.e. it couldn't be done on a pc?

Personally I think it isolates them. No one texts anymore really. In my area you need a smartphone for homework, homework is set on apps and we also need one for the bus here.

Good luck with that.
I understand your concerns, but your DD will need a laptop or other device at home for accessing the school's VLE for homework when she gets to secondary school. Schools don't hand out worksheets any more.

When they make new friends at secondary school she will need some way of communicating with them outside of school hours and, as others have pointed out smartphones are used for bus and train tickets, tickets to events and a myriad other things.

I don't think it's good parenting to deliberately isolate your child from their peers and from accessing normal parts of modern day life.

This.

@renthead Yes - there can be big differences between a 14 year old and a 10/11 year old. My child's sporty and tends to hang out in person after school with friends, then home for food then heads out for sport. Weekends are usually spent travelling and competing. If that continues into teen years, I'd be less concerned about them missing out on whatever their school friends are organising, as they'd be doing their own thing anyway which would leave them on the outskirts of whatever school-based stuff is going on.

I think your cutting them off from so much.
WhatsApp groups. I suppose the work around is to set it up in a tablet using dumb phones number- but what a faff.

Google Classroom (or which ever platform school use) yes they can access via PC but they aren't going to cart a PC around.
Home Economics recipes are on GC not sure if they also have paper copies in school.

Order school dinner via app. Or if out n about McDs via the app.

Who wants to be the only kid with no phone when science teaches says 'pull out your phone and film this experiment' 🤔 It doesn't happen often but I've been sent the odd cool experiment 😎 via WhatsApp from my oldest.

Music kids are streaming music to phones rather than carrying mp3 players etc.

Phones are the future in 2024

That's actually worrying - I keep an eye on WhatsApp!

One of the Apps DD needs is the app for sports club as the children are supposed to update their attendance 2 days before so the coaches can plan, and their availability for matches. Theoretically the patent could do it... but the idea is for them to take responsibility and to do any prep the coaches send.

Its quite amusing for me as DH is the coach so he he sometimes knows her availability before she does but she has to still officially tell him.

I think it's like anything and getting a balance. Phones are not all bad but the child must be ready for the responsibility. My 12 year old has one but doesn't take it to school - the walk is short.

I've seen so many kids walk around with their phone like it's going to protect them. I've tried to teach mine that a phone is a tool - but you need to keep yourself safe in other ways too. Like looking confident when you walk.

It's also important to teach them what happens if the phone is not there; you can't and shouldn't rely on one. Teach them important phone numbers or carry them on their person if they go out.