14 year old has a Burner phone

[GCRyan]

I now know that my 14 year old son has a burner phone.

On his “official” phone that we bought I have it locked from 10pm -7am on school days and midnight to 7 at weekends. It has blocks for gambling, porn and similar key works. He has an allocation of 4 hrs per day, with 1.5 hrs of Snapchat and 1 of TikTok. The rest mostly used on Spotify. He has loudly complained how restrictive I am vs other parents. I feel I am being generous. He has threatened getting a burner for several months and I have ignored this until I found it yesterday.

Am I really out of touch with the volume of phone usage for 14/15 year olds?

I need guidance. I expect if I just take the burner he will get another and then will be much more vigilant in its secretive usage.

Does anyone have any words of experience/wisdom to share?

While my DD is younger and my DS has SEN and no friends - they also both have Google speakers in their rooms and unlimited time on YouTube Music so they can listen while doing homework or just relaxing.

You need a more sophisticated screen timer. My 15 yr old has 1 hour restriction but unlimited spotify, whatsapp, kindle, drawing app etc. School work is done on chromebook not phone. No tiktok, Snapchat, insta. He also watches youtube on the family telly which drives me mad but at least I know what he's watching and it's just gaming nonsense, nothing dangerous.

I would definitely be looking very carefully at this extra phone to see what it's being used for, and talking to him about it and his phone use generally.

@TheQueenOfTheNight - I don't think Spotify playing music is counted in screen time - only the browsing or watching videos.

We also use the alexa ball thingy with free access to amazon music upstairs & downstairs, much like putting on a cassette when I was a teen 🤣. No screen needed for music & audio books.

Listening to music whilst cycling is dangerous because you can’t hear what is going on around you. Surely that is obvious?

Obviously you've never looked into parental control software, which is terrifying if you have teenagers. There are loads of free and paid for parental control apps which can restrict app use and set bedtime/schooltime blockers. That combined with physically removing the phone (all phones in our house charge downstairs overnight) and an understanding with the teen that you will access the phone ocassionally to guard against anything dangerous (and to check they are not overriding the parental controls!).

It's called parenting and a lot of teens need a lot more of it.

You may not be aware that they can now access videos through Spotify… all the same kind of thing they can watch on YouTube/snapchat videos/reels/tiktok etc.

I’m sure your son would be able to explain to you that a sample of one does not create evidence. Perhaps if you’d restricted his phone use he’d be reading his degree at Cambridge? Or maybe he was sensible and
didn't waste his time staring at TikTok or similar.

There is a huge amount of evidence of the harm of smartphones. Social media has been banned in Australia for under 16s.

He'd now have no phone if he was mine.

best friends daughter stole her car liedto the cops and everyone involved
ispoke to one of the counclers and cops and then said yeah we get told all kinds of shit grooming,beating etc
the kid has been in her room for 4 yrs so she went online with a guy ?///////??//
you know the scammers the old folks are been hit by
luckily she is almost 18 sent to aplace to keep her til she is sent to job corp
changing locks all screens allllll all phones and where she going no tech phone one in the main office with some ain the room
she hid 3 phones in her room
her mom spent 9 hours empting the room found all kind of stuff that shoulld not be there
mom is so stressed after the kids in the place i am taking her to a beach and
hang out and watch beautiful things

I tho k it’s odd that a friend would purchase a phone for him.

How is he paying for credit etc?
if it’s a WiFi only phone, I’d be tempted to turn the internet off overnight.

It amazes me how little people awareness there is about parental control apps. You can allocate an allotted amount of time per app, block apps, block sites, see how much time your child has spent on each app using Family Link/Google360 and so many more. It's important to keep an eye on things and not give unrestricted access to the net for any young person.

OP Snapchat is popular with teens because the messages disappear. He could be sent a nude pic, discuss illegal stuff like drugs and it would be all set to disappear after a few seconds. IF you screenshot, a message is sent to the sender to tell them that you’ve done this. The app is popular with bullies, kids who send nudes, cheaters and people involved in criminal activity because of the disappearing message feature.

Smartphones are a modern problem. Too strict and they’ll set up secret accounts and keep up the pretence that their finsta is the real deal but not having boundaries means gambling on your child not seeing or talking to people that you’d rather not.

Did you know that Chinese version of TT is limited to 40 minutes a day for age 14 and under because it’s well known how addictive apps like this are?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-58625934

People complain about the wealth of people like Zuckerberg when it’s the eyeballs on their apps that have made them billionaires.

Far too restrictive. Would you like someone telling you you're not allowed to listen to music anymore? That's how everyone listens these days. Music is particularly important for most people.
And how are you leading by example? Are you turning your internet off at 10 as well?
I'd be way more worried about where and how he got it than his disobedience.
Over authoritarian parenting just teaches kids how to lie, cheat, steal and deceive.

I would also be going nuts about the phone. I would be demanding to know exactly where he got it and who off and I would be contacting their parents to explain what has happened. There is no way one teen should be giving another teen a smartphone (and credit/contract?) It smacks of county lines. Apparently the electric bikes are the same - give a kid an electric bike and then they're in debt to you and have to deal your drugs to pay it off. Classic and well known tactic.

Your argument makes no sense
The OP is an adult. Her son is not and she is perfectly correct to want him to do more as he grows up than stare at a screen for hours.

I am really starting to think that constant use of social media, AI and so on is just making people dumber by the minute and unable to think for themselves...