Technology

I don't think going phoneless would be a great idea because emergencies happen and people need to communicate but society would probably be better if kids weren't glued to smartphone apps and social media from a young age. The smart watch or dumb phone idea makes sense to me though.

Don't they require smart phones to work though? All the ones I have had are all just BT devices which require a phone to do anything beyond tell the time

Or just give them a dumb phone.

Anyone have a recommendation for a decent kids smartwatch with cell service? I got my son a Garmin Bounce and the text and the service sucked so we returned it.

Those watches with tracking built in are certainly popular in my area, but I absolutely refuse to use it. Kidnapping just isn't a thing (the majority of kidnappings is by a trusted family member/friend), and I don't think kids should get accustomed to someone constantly looking over their shoulder. I've gotten my kids "smart" watches (fun Minecraft watches with built-in games and whatnot), and there's no tracking or internet access whatsoever.

If kids need to call, they can ask a trusted adult to borrow a phone. If I trust my kid, they can borrow my spare. Kids don't need a phone of their own until they can at least get around on their own (e.g. driver's license or parental permission to leave the neighborhood on their own), and for me, that's like 14yo. I have a 10yo, and there's no way I'm giving them a phone now or in the next year. They're really responsible, but they don't need it at all.

Both.

When I went to price it out at the store, the line for a dumb phone was going to cost $30/mo more than a smart phone. It was dumb.

If the new dumb phones also came with Google Family Link for tracking then it would be a win. But they don't. As a parent, having the ability to track my kids when I know they're heading to or from somewhere is a big deal. And no, it's not an issue of trust.

There is a growing tide of data suggesting the fight is worth it, but understand it is a serious struggle.

Much like trying to get kids to eat healthy when they are surrounded by so much awful food in the US.

A telecom company with the hubris and arrogance to call themselves "Everything Everywhere".

EE (formerly Everything Everywhere) is a British mobile network operator, internet service provider and a brand of BT Consumer, a division of BT Group. Supposedly the #1 network in the UK similar to Verizon in the US.

Equine Enchephalitis

Electronics Enonymous.

Electrical Engineers.

When they need one. And no, that's not when they say they need one, but when you decide they need one.

I'm planning on having a loaner phone when my kids are teenagers that they can share. It'll stay home unless they leave the house, and they'll be limited to how much time they can spend on it. If they earn my trust, maybe they'll get their own (again, subject to limitations). I don't see a reason why they'd need one before they can drive, but I'll play it by ear.

That said, I refuse to do any sort of tracking on their devices. If I trust them with a phone, I'll respect their privacy with it. If they violate my trust, they lose the phone. If they don't like it, they're free to get their own once they're 18, and not a day before.

set up content filtering

Then kids will just work around it.

I personally refuse to set up content filtering. My state passed a law requiring ID to view porn and use SM, and I'm willing to set up a VPN on my WiFi to work around that because I detest content filtering. I'd much rather have zero filtering and track what websites are visited so I can react appropriately (i.e. if the kid is watching porn, they probably need some proper sex ed and something to occupy their time).

That's a restriction on access to the Internet.

Sure, and I'm 100% willing to take that away from them.

My policy is, if I trust you, I trust you to not be supervised. If I don't trust you, I don't trust you at all. So either you get complete access, or you get no access.

That's how I'm planning to handle phones as well. They'll get a loaner phone when they need it, and if they earn my trust with that, they'll get their own. If they violate my trust, they lose the phone, including the loaner. Simple as that.

the government doesn’t let anyone do that

Yeah, that's not cool at all, the government shouldn't tell me how I can raise my kids.

That said, kids can still access the internet at school and at libraries, just like I did as a kid. Or they can ask to borrow the family computer. If I choose to restrict my child's access to the internet, that should 100% be my prerogative, as should me deciding to give my child a smart phone.

I was programming when I was in first grade. I was doing computer graphics and word processing somewhere around there. Those are important skillsets to have. I made use of those. You want kids to pick those up. You do not want to push those back. I’d get a computer of whatever form into their hands at the earliest point that they can avoid destroying it.

Most kids aren't improving their skillsets. They definitely aren't programming on cell phones. I am a programmer. I have code editors that I paid for on my phone at all times. I've used them like 5 times at most.

Social media and misinformation is damaging for everyone but more so for children. Social media is what kids are mostly doing.

I agree that there can positives for using a cell phone. Their are educational software but most kids aren't doing that.

Smartphones won't help you learn how computers work. They are dumbed down devices, designed to keep you on social media while maximizing exposure to ads. These things are way worse than TVs.

Wikipedia. Google Maps. The store of knowledge available from search engines. I use those all the time. You want to cut them off from that?

That's a bit overdramatic. Most kids have a laptop for schoolwork these days. I personally didn't get a smartphone until I started university, got a Samsung S7 then. I had no issues accessing any of those sources. These days I have a comp sci masters degree, so it definitely didn't "stunt" me in any way.

I read and certainly write way more text than I did in the pre-Internet era. Do you want kids reading and writing less?

Kids reading and writing skills appear to have been declining ever since the rise of the smartphone, so I doubt they're reading anything of sufficient quality to hone those skills a bit.

Schools here have recently mostly banned smartphones, and the kids seem happier for it and their grades and concentration in school is improving. Sound like positives to me.

Agree with your points on having a pocked PC to hack with, the issue here is then with mobile and their OS makers which mindbogglingly have omitted to design a working and hardly hackable "children account mode", since what is damaging here is not what they can fiddle within their devices, nor certainly what they can read from wikipedia, but rather the unfiltered and unaccountable exposure to a profiling oriented social media storm which even adults fatigue to cope with.

I'm sure it isn't unheard of OSes having a hardware locked managed kiosk mode, because that is what smartphones basically need.

You know you don't have to doomscroll social media right? You can just, you know, not do social media.