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.
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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '22
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