this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2024
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My kids are around that age and it's a real struggle when all of their friends have one.
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.
I wish I didn't need an Android phone for work, WhatsApp, Telegram, maps.
But I sadly do.
I wish I didn't need an iPhone for work, (List of every app that is also available on Android).
But sadly I do.
No sane people use iPhones where I live. It was a thing of glamorous girls and people not doing actual work for some time, but now even them I don't see with iPhones.
For me personally - as it's something I need, but not something I want to invest into, nor something I like, the Android phone I use for these things (another SIM) was almost as cheap as the dumbphone I use for calls. Comparable to groceries for a week.
I don't think there are iPhones one can buy for that price, ha-ha.
Yup. All my friends had cell phones and I was pretty much the only one who didn't. That kind of sucked, but my friends were cool and worked around it.
If their friends won't accommodate them, well, they've shown their true colors and perhaps they should find some better friends. Having a phone isn't going to fix crappy friends.
I think there were some social blunders and connections missed because I got a decent phone later than my peers.
I got my first basic phone (a phone which barely functioned and regularly crashed doing basic things) at 16 back in 2011(?) when many in my class had gotten a basic phone by 2008. By 2010, pretty much everyone had at least a basic phone, many had smart phones.
I wouldn't write this off as an irrelevant issue in a world where so much connection is done through phones (even if you personally don't believe you were all that affected). I do think my parents decision to delay giving their shy-ish child living in a rural area a good phone (solely because they didn't have one when they were kids) was a bad decision.
Actually being able to keep up with people between classes, discuss homework, to have gotten some pretty girls numbers earlier on, etc ... that could've really changed my high school and middle school (or at least jr high) experience for the better.
I certainly don't know your situation or anything, so apologies if this comes off as tone-deaf.
And yeah, I completely appreciate that a lot of communication happens through phones. However, most of that communication is a distraction, and a lot of it is damaging. If you have a phone but nobody talks to you, that's worse than if you don't have a phone at all. Likewise, if you have a phone and use it responsibly, you'll likely get called out for "ignoring" people's messages because so many people expect a ridiculous level of engagement these days.
Calls and texts aren't really a thing any more, and most people communicate through apps instead. That means that even without a phone, there's a pretty good chance you can still be included if you have access to a computer at home. I grew up in a weird transition where people moved from IM to SMS, because IM just didn't work yet on phones yet everyone had phones. We're seeing the opposite trend these days, where now that most people have massive data plans, apps are becoming king again.
So in my mind, this means that not providing a phone doesn't cut them off, it just delays communication. That means they'll have less of a chance to become addicted to all the SM BS, while still being able to be included in things. I think that's a healthy boundary to set.
That said, absolutely none of my friends communication during HS or my communication in college was productive. We didn't "discuss homework" or anything related to school, we merely arranged hangouts and flirted, with a little gossip to round things out. I highly doubt things have changed much, because that's just what kids do. When I was young, cell phones weren't a thing, and my sister spent hours on the phone talking about nonsense with her friends. That's just how teenagers work, if they're talking to friends, they're not talking about school work.
That said, I'll certainly be paying attention as my kids get older. My oldest is around 10, and they're definitely too young for a phone (though I'm debating giving them their own PC). I have nephews and nieces who are a few years older, and I can roughly see which ones I'd be comfortable giving access to a phone, and which I'm not, and that point seems to be around 14yo. But whether I give my kids one depends on how much I trust them. We'll probably test drive a loaner phone in a year or two before deciding if they should have their own phone.
The last two prargraphs sound at least way more sensible and logical than the earlier comments.
Sorry for the late reply...
I find this varies a lot within different social groups ... some people I know use different apps some people don't use anything other than SMS/iMessage and/or maybe Facebook messenger.
My friends and I definitely communicated with Skype and things like that. I just never really had the chance to "grow my social network" if you will as a younger teen. Like summer 2009 I did a summer gym thing (my school let students take gym in the summer before high school for the high school PE credits and lots of kids did) ... if I had a cell phone there's a good chance I might have made connections with kids that had interests other than "get on the computer and play video games (and associated 'nerdy' interests)."
That could be fair; it just kind of depends on what their peers are doing. I'd also caution against artificially creating hard barriers that won't be for them later in life. My parents didn't lock the fridge they just said we couldn't have ice cream more than one time a week. It was ultimately on us to be able to honor that agreement.
Of course that wasn't a bullet proof "solution", I'm sure we snuck some ice cream here or there ... and I'm sure we got caught at least one. But, IMO that's just part of being a kid and a couple of bowls of ice cream when we broke the rule didn't hurt anything, the rule still did its job (keeping our diets tilted towards good).
I think this varies too. Of what I remember of college, sure the vast majority of stuff was non-school communication. However, there definitely was communication over projects (especially if I was doing something with friends vs random people in class).
I think this is the biggest thing. Like, nobody can tell you how to parent your kid and I'm not trying to tell you what's right. I'm just saying, my parents took a hard line stance on this, based on some made up rules about what I should or shouldn't have that was way different than what nearly every other parent was doing. I didn't have the gumption (arguably due to a mostly unrelated, hidden, depression that my parents attributed entirely to "teenage angst") to advocate for that access or ask for help and largely just accepted my situation as the best I was going to get.
It sounds like you had overbearing parents, which is honestly as bad or worse than overly loose parents. Unfortunately, most parents seem to go too far down one end of the spectrum or the other.
And that's precisely why I don't care what other parents do. If my kids want something, they know they need to use well-reasoned arguments and show through their behavior that they can be trusted. In general, this means my kids often get to do things before their peers (e.g. my kid was riding to the park alone at least a year before their peers), but it also means they just don't get to do certain things (e.g. I refuse to let them play F2P games like Fortnite because of the predatory marketing). In general, I either fully trust my kids, or I don't trust them at all. Either we have ice cream in the house where they can easily get it, or we have nothing in the house. I don't believe in parental controls, content filters, tracking devices, etc, so either they have full access, or they have none. That's generally how my parents raised me: trust, with steep consequences. And that's how real life works, either you follow the rules, or you get hit with severe consequences.
I'm sorry if your parents weren't understanding. I think the best approach is to articulate from a very young age that every rule is up for discussion, but that only accept well-reasoned arguments will be accepted (and "but my friends get to do it" isn't a valid argument). If my kids ask, I'll provide reasons for every rule we have and what needs to happen in order for those rules to change. I want to give my kids privileges, but I won't until they prove they're ready for them. If my kids get their own phone, they'll have earned it and the trust that goes along with it.
Agreed.
Everyone saying they'd give a smartphone at best under best behaviour at age >16 are very suspect to me.
I would bet a solid 100€ they werent perfect kids to their parents either and worked around restrictions or talked long enough to be convincing or their lives were so long ago that they only remember a time with land lines and mobile calls costing 9ct per minute.
Getting a phone this late is socially crippling them.
IMO late middle school is a good starting age while giving them guidance.
At all users: Take it with a grain of salt. This is coming from someone without children but as someone that has been in school during the late 2000s and early 2010s
Well, I grew up before smart phones were a thing, but dumb phones were absolutely a thing (the "cool" kids had the Motorola Razer, if that helps).
And yeah, not having a phone sucked. But I was able to bum a phone off my friends, and I carried some coins in case I needed to use a pay phone (another hint at my age).
Pay phones aren't really a thing anymore, but kids can absolutely ask a trusted adult (e.g. a teacher) to use their phone in an emergency. My kids also know our phone numbers, our address, and rough directions to get home, so if there's a true emergency, they can get home (e.g. get a police officer to give them a lift). We ride bikes in our neighborhood frequently enough that they can probably give turn by turn directions once they're within a few blocks of our house. But the chances of that actually happening are so remote it's really not worth planning for. We only take our kids to birthday parties (we meet the parents when we drop them off), school activities (we know their teachers), or friends houses, and we let them go on their own to the local parks. We give them a time to come home, and if they don't come home when expected, they lose their privilege to go out on their own for a bit.
So I'm not concerned at all about emergencies, and I think parents are way too worried about it. If I don't trust my kid on their own somewhere, a phone isn't going to make me feel more comfortable. In my eyes, a phone is a privilege, and privileges are earned and can absolutely be revoked.
I'll probably give my kids phones before they leave the house, but not until they earn that trust, and also not before they actually need one. My current target is 14yo w/ a dumb phone, and 16yo w/ a smart phone (for directions). Once I've given them a phone, I'll trust them completely with it (no tracking) until they violate my trust, at which point they'll lose it. That's how I'd prefer to be treated as a kid, so that's how I'll treat them.