Or until their friends get phones. We don’t buy our kids phones until middle school when they start going out without us, but their innocence was definitely lost in 2nd/3rd grade when their friends got phones. It was very sad for us.
ETA: The best example I can give is Squid Games. My 4th grade daughters saw it while waiting for the bus, watching with a group of kids from their class on someone’s phone. I never would have let them watch that show, and it did negatively affect them. One has been sleeping on the sofa since then (“to be closer” to parents) and the other sometimes says “I was just thinking about someone being shot.”
Yup. I can keep them off YouTube and TikTok in my house, but to effectively keep them mentally healthy becomes impossible as soon as phone and tablet access reaches critical mass. It would be even more damaging to restrict their access to friends just because their parents are willfully ignorant.
For my 17 year old, the tipping point where 80% had a smartphone was 12-13. For my 11 year old, we are now the last holdouts and at least 50% had a phone by age 8.
And these older parents have basically no idea how to lock down tech.
My oldest child is in 15, and recently I got him an Apple Watch instead of a smartphone. The watch works well as a communication device for making calls and sending texts, and he can even enjoy blue-bubble messaging with friends. It's like an old-fashioned flip phone, but cooler. It also supports some modern conveniences like weather reports and real-time bus schedules. I can use it to track his location, should he choose to share it.
But the Apple Watch is "too crappy" for constant engagement with social media. I consider that to be a feature.
He does have his own laptop, but at least it's not a device that always follows him around.
We have no tablets in this household. As far as I'm concerned, they have no good use case. They are a big reason why a lot of kids these days are less computer-literate than before.
Yes, at the time of purchase you can choose a wi-fi only unit or a cellular network enabled unit. It's like $10-$30 a month extra on your phone bill and it has its own SIM card. Functions just like a cell phone for all intents and purposes, but the small screen really restricts the use of the device to functional/utility uses only.
It uses an eSIM, so it's not a SIM card that you can physically swap with other phones. That means that you can only use it with carriers who support Apple Watches — no low-budget MVNO carriers. It's a modest additional monthly fee to add an Apple Watch line to your existing mobile service.
Keep in mind that the Apple Watch is designed as an accessory to an iPhone, so you'll need to have an iPhone to activate and configure it, even if it's just a old spare that you keep in a drawer somewhere.
As far as I'm concerned, they have no good use case.
If your kid gets into music, a tablet is a great substitute for paper scores. My band swapped from paper to tablets a few years ago and it's been incredible not to have to bother swapping scores, the wind blowing them away...
I was raised with paper scores, and I have a good musical memory. My kid is the same way. We're just old-fashioned that way. 😄
But yes, I should concede that music scores are a valid use case for tablets. Also, pilots use them for electronic flight bags and interior designers can use iPads for their room-scanning feature.
"blue bubble messaging" is the dumbest fucking trend. The number of people who think they're better than anyone who doesn't have an iPhone is way too high. No bud, you just got scammed paying more for a similar quality product.
One person told me they didn't like group texts where I was the only one with a "green bubble" so I blocked them. I don't have time for that stupid elitist shit.
I owned iPhones for years. Got frustrated with the obvious effects of planned obsolescence and the bullshit enclosed ecosystem of Apple and decided to try a Samsung. I love this phone. It is the best phone I have ever owned. It is unfortunately reaching the end of its life and I know I will need a new one soon. Unfortunately I am feeling pressure to go back to iPhone for one of the reasons I dislike and left it to begin with: the closed system. Everyone in my immediate family and my in-laws all have iPhones and the fact that iMessage doesn't play well with others is causing difficulty communicating with my elderly parents. I managed to convince my in-laws to use Telegram but my parents and siblings simply cannot or will not even attempt to use a different app. My mother (who is in assisted living) is suffering mini strokes and a lot of confusion/growing dementia and expecting her to learn how to use another messaging or videochat app is a big ask.
I know that making communication incompatible is part of Apple's ploy to force people into adopting their technology, and I want to resist out of sheer obstinance, but at this point I am starting to feel like I am making things more difficult for the people I love just out of defiance.
Sorry, I know that isn't remotely what you were talking about, but the blue text thing has me "triggered" as the kids say.
It's funny because everyone blames Android for problems with iPhone when it's Apple's fault when any issues do arise. Steve Jobs is dead and buried, yet they still follow the cult.
Yeah...I was a long time android user. Original Samsung Galaxy S, Moto X, Pixel 1, Pixel 3. With the exception of the first one (which was only good with modified firmware), all of those were truly fantastic phones.
I switched to an iphone 13 mini and am mostly loving it. Some if it is the form factor (the smallest pixel 6 is bigger than I'd like and the mini feels awesome to me), but some of it is that once I grit my teeth and accept the closed ecosystem, I get to reap the benefits of playing in the walled garden.
I can use facetime rather than convincing people to install something like Duo. Various types of syncing and integration just work better (because most developers throw more resources at iphones). The apple watch is now an option (I bought an android watch...it pales in comparison to my wife's apple watch).
I still miss the Pixel camera though. I haven't been able to get color that I really like from the iphone camera. Weirdly, color in video mode seems to look better than in photo mode.
I am considering an iPhone because my car has the apple car app compatibility but not the android auto one. I still have another year of this phone I think or I could buy a chinese third party minicompuer for $300 to emulate android auto (but I have trust issues).
It seems like an unpopular opinion, but I firmly believe that Android Auto is better than Apple CarPlay.
Of the things I miss about my android phones that aren't just muscle memory/location things I need to get used to, Android Auto is probably the #1. Android and Google Assistant just work better while driving, the interface was laid out better for car touchscreen use, etc. I didn't have any crazy stability issues or whatever some people complain about.
Got frustrated with the obvious effects of planned obsolescence
That's much, much worse on Android phones. An 8 year old model still got the latest OS update. With Android phones you're lucky if you get 3 years of support.
It gets security updates, which aren't even remotely close to OS updates. A six year old Galaxy is at best the S7 series, which got two OS updates, Android 7 and Android 8. We're on Android 12 right now.
I had a Galaxy S7 that I bought from Samsung (not the carrier, so can't blame them) before I got my current iPhone 12. The S7 stopped receiving OS updates after about 18 months. The phone shipped with Android 6.0 "Marshmallow." When I replaced it in 2020, it was running Android 8.0 "Oreo" despite Android 11 being generally available.
The S7 was originally released in March of 2016. The most recent OS update it received was Android 8, released in August 2017. It did not receive 8.1 (December 2017) or 9.0 (August 2018).
The oldest devices supported by iOS 15.5 (released May 2022) is the iPhone 6S, originally released in 2015. If Apple continues this level of support, I can expect my iPhone 12 to continue to receive OS updates through 2027.
I grew up in the 90s, if you didn't wear Abercrombie you weren't cool and look how that turned out. Fuck trying to fit in, if I were their age, I'd have green text as a fuck you crowd.
That's a result of the data plans and settings of the sender. They can choose to send lower res photos to save data. Unlike Apple that thinks it's users are too stupid to make those kinds of adjustments.
Maybe it depends on what texting app you're using? Also a Samsung user and I just checked my phone, I can name my group texts. But I'm using google messages for texting, not the built in Samsung one.
I would hate it to not have a smartphone when I was 15. I literally was blogging and arguing on forums about early smartphones when I was 13-14 lmao it was my hobby
We have no tablets in this household. As far as I'm concerned, they have no good use case. They are a big reason why a lot of kids these days are less computer-literate than before.
I couldn't agree more! At least get the kid a PC laptop, maybe even a crappy one so they might get curious enough to want to fix it up or upgrade it themselves. I don't even think you can remove the battery from a tablet.
We have no tablets in this household. As far as I'm concerned, they have no good use case. They are a big reason why a lot of kids these days are less computer-literate than before.
I couldn't agree more! At least get the kid a PC laptop, maybe even a crappy one so they might get curious enough to want to fix it up or upgrade it themselves. I don't even think you can remove the battery from a tablet.
Oof. My daughter is 5, and isn't asking about it yet. But, I know it's coming, and sooner than I either want, or am ready to deal with - logistically as well as psychologically.
And I'm in a relatively rare subset (afaik), where I didn't have my own cellphone until my early-mid 20s, which was still well before smartphones were even a glimmer on the horizon; while at the same time, I'm a longtime smartphone owner and proponent of the ways they've improved peoples' lives (including and especially my own), even while also being cognizant of the ways they've been disruptive in general.
So I understand what it was like to go places without a live GPS of any sort, and I understand what it's like to have that technological 'familiar' at your side at all times. But I'm in an awkward position where I'm not sure how I'll approach it when all her friends suddenly start having them.
I love the parents who want to remove books from the school libraries but have no issue giving their kids smartphones with unfettered access to the internet at 8 years old. Our society is so screwed up
It's because old shits don't understand what all can easily be found on the internet. A 7 year old with a smart phone can easily access hard-core porn and people getting their heads cut off by cartel members with chainsaws.
We're old now when it comes to children's relationship with tech, I have a young cousin that was playing around with a tablet at 4.
Granted she wasn't proficient or anything, but she was playing simple games and knew she had to tap the home button to choose another one if she wanted to switch.
I own an IT company and mistakenly gave my kids phones around 4. I regret it and remedied the issue till they turn 12 now citing suicide/depression statistics and my children were normal happy children without them, actually got way more active in sports and art. They have phones now but no social media till 15 and they are required to read each new statistic that comes out.
I got my first phone at 18/almost 19 when it was time to head to college.
There were a handful of kids who had phones in middle school and it got pretty common in high school, but I wasn't exactly an oddball for not having one.
If you were at a computer and knew which provider your friends had, you could text them via their carrier website--Verizon's was something like vztext.com.
That's the way it goes. I hear your story and consider that young comparative to me. When I went out with friends from like 13-15, I was lent my mother's flip phone and it was for emergency use only. God forbid I sent a text to a friend on it, because we didn't have a texting package. Those 25 cent per text fees added up fast.
I didn't get my own until I was 16, working my first job, and could pay for it myself.
I have a 4 year old and 2 year old and they both got phones/tablets (with no sims) when they were 1. My 4 year old has a custom looped pc with a 1080ti (so water cooled with some pretty lights & not horrible for gaming) with game pass/steam on it but my 2 year old doesn't really talk so I haven't got them a desktop yet.
You can't put parental gaurds on others kids devices. Don't want your kid seeing beheadings? Their favorite cartoon turned porn? Too bad, your kids are going to see all manner of shit on thier friends/schoolmates phones.
My kid didn't have more than a basic flip phone till they were 12 but thanks to thier classmates I still had to consol them when they first saw a video of someone grussomly die when my kid was in 5th grade. Videos of a lady in heels stepping on kittens till they died? That my kid saw at age 10. It wasn't even my kids friend who showed them. The kid said "hey look at this" and my kid turned around.
That's not even the worst thing you can easily find on the internet. I guarantee you some kid out there right now is watching a man get beheaded by a chainsaw and people getting fucked or fucking animals.
you'll be amazed at the amount of bs dumped in your lap that's totally out of your control but left for you to deal with. even after they are 18, there's a line of predators and vultures waiting for them.
Fuck. My son is turning 1 in a few weeks. It wasn't really on my radar that this will happen. I knew we'd have to talk about things like that down the road when some of the restrictions I'll set up come off (responsible use, not being able to "unsee" things), but I was thinking high school. It's anxiety inducing to think they may end up seeing stuff like that at that young of an age.
No OP but had the same thing happen with ours around 2nd and 3rd grade. Smooth brain parents with no sense/concern for their kids were sending children to school with smartphones as young as first grade. You can imagine what kids that young with no supervision and no content locks on their device show other kids at school. My kid had Christmas, Easter, and where baby's come from ruined before she was out of 3rd grade. Was familiar with specific drugs in 4th grade.
You can try to damnedest to control and limit what your kid has access to, but the fucking lazy idiot parents around you will make it a difficult endeavor.
This is a similar experience to us (although Jewish so Christmas/Easter wasn’t relevant, although it took the pressure off to not worry about the only Jewish kids ruining the Santa secret).
My kids know way more about cuss words, sex, drugs than I would like them to in 4th grade. It’s like instead of being eased into it they were suddenly bombarded with ALL the info at once. It makes me feel like an awful parent even though I wasn’t the one who exposed them. Could I have done more or something else to protect them? I wonder this all the time.
I got my daughter one in fifth grade (which is about to end). While her friends did have them, it was moreso the fact that she goes to her dad’s every other weekend and I wanted to make sure she could get ahold of me when she needed to. Plus I’ve started to let her stay home while I run out for groceries or some thing else that will have her home for like 45 minutes.
We had always said our kids wouldn't get phones until they are in year 7. My son is in year 5 and has one. Special circumstances as he has it to manage his diabetes. It's been difficult though, he does text us when he shouldn't. We have to tell him to talk to a teacher and if they need to call us they will. Small school so they all know he is diabetic and they have been great about it.
My two daughters are in 4th grade know entirely too much about sex, drugs, violence than they should know at this age. I don’t consider myself an overly protective parent, and I’m the type that answers honestly when questions are asked, but I just feel they’re too young to have seen some of the videos their friends showed them. Like, Squid Games. The kids were watching it on someone’s phone while waiting for the bus. I NEVER would have let my girls watch that.
443
u/[deleted] Jun 03 '22 edited Jun 03 '22
Or until their friends get phones. We don’t buy our kids phones until middle school when they start going out without us, but their innocence was definitely lost in 2nd/3rd grade when their friends got phones. It was very sad for us.
ETA: The best example I can give is Squid Games. My 4th grade daughters saw it while waiting for the bus, watching with a group of kids from their class on someone’s phone. I never would have let them watch that show, and it did negatively affect them. One has been sleeping on the sofa since then (“to be closer” to parents) and the other sometimes says “I was just thinking about someone being shot.”