9 ms·

I Won’t Buy My Teenagers Smartphones

43 points by danso 7y ago

gmoore 7y ago
yes - resisting change is always a good idea.....sheesh
Nursie 7y ago
>> I believe that a smartphone too accessible, given too early, and in the wrong hands is at best an addictive distraction and at worst a handheld siphon draining away children’s youth one beep, one swipe, one notification at a time. I support a parent's right to choose for their kids, but this seems very naive, and not far off the "No good will come of you spending all that time on the computer, go outside and play" line my own mother used to spin, and the fears that having computers in the house would warp kids of the 80s. In reality I had no deficit of outside time, or sports at school, she just took against tech early on. She just got a (dumb) mobile phone about two years ago and rarely uses it. The real root of the fear here seems to be that your child might have a different upbringing to your own, one you don't understand. I have no doubt the kids will be fine, if a little peeved at Mom for denying them common forms and channels of social interaction their peers indulge in.
- danso 7y ago
  As someone who grew up with a computer in the household in the 80s, I don't think the two situations are comparable. For one, a computer back then (and even today) is much less geared toward consumption (versus creation) than phones are. Second, being able to carry a phone with you and use it all day makes it a fundamentally different influence.
  - tjansen 7y ago
    Not sure where you grew up, but where I grew up most kids spent at least 95% of their computer time playing games.
    - danso 7y ago
      Yeah I played a lot of games too, but it was still a machine that was geared toward you doing work – even when playing games (besides qbasic, configuring .bat and .ini files were my first foray into hacking and programming). And reading USENET was not as addictive or as mind-dulling as infinitely scrolling on Instagram and Facebook
    - icebraining 7y ago
      Same. Either gaming or on mIRC, flirting. Very few created anything or even knew more than the basics about computers.
- BaconJuice 7y ago
  I just rolled my eyes when I saw the title here and I rolled my eyes harder when I read what Sarah had to say. Your points are exactly what my thoughts are. I remember my grandmother use to tell my mother to tell me to stop using the computer so much and go outside and play. Like you said I had a great social life but any time I was on the computer learning to code it was apparently bad for me. My parents didn't really understand the opportunities something like a computer had in the future just like Sarah over here doesn't understand smart phones. All Sarah sees is the negatives just like my parents so the negatives of using a computer. Yes there is a risk of having to have that unpleasant convo with your kids about whats right and wrong and being responsible with your phone..but isn't that what parents are suppose to do? Teach your kids what's right and wrong instead of just denying them of things you don't understand? </endrant>
non-entity 7y ago
Interesting. My parents similarly never got me or my siblings smartphones (in retrospect it may have been a financial thing, though). I was 18 before I bought my own (only a few year ago!) I've never met another person in this sort of situation. Most other people I knew had their parents eventually get them one early in HS. There were definitely negative effects. I imagine mostly social and nowadays inconsequential to an extent. I'm still to this day rather isolated, both from my family and peers On the flip side I had an incredible attention span and was able to learn anything I wanted with persistence. I'm simply not able to do that anymore. That being said, I don't think I'd so the same for my kids.
dukoid 7y ago
"My boys are not like the kid I met in college who had grown up without TV and didn’t appreciate the cultural relevancy of Bo and Luke Duke or George Jefferson. My kids readily quote Ron Swanson and Dwight Shrute." -- I bet the "no TV" parents had a similar defense citing radio access....
chuckgreenman 7y ago
I see the smart phone addiction problem as similar to the food addiction problem, you have to eat and if you want to have a good modern job you have to have a cell phone. Part of becoming an adult is learning about the temptations of life and how to manage them. Ultimately I think this is a disservice in the long term, by shielding their kids from technology they also shield them from the development of the self control muscle. The great author/comedian John Hodgeman once said "it's their time to waste" in response to someone who wrote into his advice column about their teens seeming to waste their time as a teen. Unfortunately, goofing off and wasting time is a thing I think most people need to do for some segment of their lives until they become sick of it and decide to get in gear.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
y4mi 7y ago
This is clearly written by an adult who forgot how most children behave. If they're the only ones without a smartphone, they'll be single out. Especially with how prevalent online communication has become. They might not be bullied (though they probably will be), but growing up as the outsider comes with is own can of worms. They'll most likely survive it, but it'll have it's effect... But everything has consequences so I guess ymmv. It's just kinda annoying to constantly read about these parents making tech into something harmful (which it obviously can be) and their own great strategy to counter this, which has at least as many dangers for their mental health as the alternative had.
- ergothus 7y ago
  I think your take is valid, but also missing large areas. Even if they AREN'T bullied for lack, they'll miss out on all the socialization. When I was a teen people talked on the phone, they hung out at the mall. I barely did. When not at school, I stayed at home to care for my younger brother and make sure dinner was made (child of a working single mom). I went out of state to my dad's place every summer, so I never spent summer vacation around my school peers. Now I'm an adult, and I don't have close friends. I never have. I don't know how to open up to people, or how to hang out with people where it isn't an obligation on one part or the other. I remain aloof, then desperately overshare (case in point), then feel awkward and embarrassed and withdraw. I've had two serious relationships in my life...and got married both times. Today's kids won't be talking on the phone, they won't be texting, they won't even be tweeting, they'll be snapping or instagramming or any number of things. They'll be sharing the experiences they have in common and generating those experiences, and for many, MANY of them those experiences will be around smartphone tech. And this author has decided their kids don't need that shared experience. That comes at a cost.
  - kome 7y ago
    yeah, but let's not mix too many things together. you can have a smartphone (I don't) and be very miserable and lonely (i’m not). I bet that's even the daily experience of a lot teenagers. A smartphone may help to get in contact with people, but it's not a necessity by a far stretch. Again: a (sometimes painful) emotional and social education is what teenagers need. Soft skills are hard to learn.
lol_jono 7y ago
ok boomer
- dang 7y ago
  Can you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? You've done it a lot and we ban accounts that do that repeatedly. We're trying for a bit better than internet default here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - lol_jono 7y ago
    ok
1shooner 7y ago
>I think my boys feel the same way about smartphones that I felt about Guess jeans—the ones with zippers at the ankles—in 1984. All the cool, pretty girls had a pair. My desire for the jeans was more about fitting in with the crowd than about the jeans themselves. The author is conflating 'fitting in' with communicating.
- ViViDboarder 7y ago
  I don’t know. They mention that they allow them to text and message friends from their tablet when at home. Essentially it is merely avoiding distraction at school.
docker_up 7y ago
My friend recently got his sons a smartphone and he says their relationship has been irrevocably damaged because of it. Not because they are rude, etc. But when they used to talk, now it's complete silence and them looking at their phones, chatting with their friends or girlfriends. He hates the phones now because there is no socialization whatsoever with his kids. The power of the phone is that strong, and he had such a close relationship with his sons.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  one possible interpretation of this story is: when given the option, the son prefers to talk to his friends instead of his parent. the phone is not the culprit here; it merely revealed a pre-existing preference.
  - josephwegner 7y ago
    I think you're spot on, and this is part of the reason I will have "no phones* after dinner/school/whatever" when my kids become smartphone age. I expect I will have similar rules about headphones in cars, or tablets at restaurant tables. If my relationship with my kid's is falling apart, I want to have some sort of signal that alerts me to it happening. I want it to feel awkward, so that I know to fix it. If the damage is masked behind a screen, I might miss it and never know to repair it. * or whatever the new distracting device is in ~10 years.
    - leetcrew 7y ago
      I think my point suggests the opposite conclusion: arbitrary electronics bans are counterproductive. if your kid chooses the device over interacting with you, that is a strong sign that something is wrong; this is the signal you are looking for! if you remove the choice by prohibiting the device during "family time", you are just removing a source of information. my parents never told us we couldn't use our phones at dinner, but they did explain that when we did it, we were signaling that what we were doing with the phone was more interesting/important than family dinner. I decided that wasn't the message I wanted to give my parents, so I would only pull out the phone for time-sensitive communications. a little bit of respect can go a long way.
grahamel 7y ago
it's a shame we don't hear the kids side in the article people I know who have done this have eventually changed and allowed/bought a phone as the in school peer pressure was huge and the kids ended up feeling excluded from their social groups as not fitting in (nothing wrong with kids finding their own path btw)
- helpPeople 7y ago
  I think there is going to be a major technology gap next generation. Nerds vs Luddites vs Apple users. Each will have a vastly different understanding of technology.
tiborsaas 7y ago
She just basically forced her 14 year old to come up with a way to buy a smartphone himself.
- j-c-hewitt 7y ago
  They're pretty cheap, so maybe 5 or 6 mowed lawns.
- theandrewbailey 7y ago
  ... provided that she permits the 14 year old to buy one.
  - icebraining 7y ago
    Or the 14 year old does it behind their backs.
    - beatgammit 7y ago
      How would they get a plan? I thought you had to be an adult to get most cell plans, though I guess prepaid plans might work.
      - icebraining 7y ago
        Yeah, where I live, prepaid is the norm, so I didn't even think of that. Still, I know teenagers who get by with just wifi.
  - tiborsaas 7y ago
    With this move she forced him to lie about it as well. Like teenagers are really great at appealing to authority.
benjohnson 7y ago
In my opinion, it's better to teach your children moderation while they're young and can learn to spot temptation and learn how to moderate themselves. A young adult that grows up without these trials may be ill prepared for all the things that tempt them when they gain their Independence.
- non-entity 7y ago
  My parents we're very authoritarian. Not really your typical helicopter parents, or religious fundamentalist parents, but aspects of those did make their way into parenting. The strangest thing to me was hearing about how things were much better when they were kids because kid did this and that, but then discouraged us from doing similar things.
TacticalTable 7y ago
> They text, they Snap—but only on weekends and a little bit this past summer All I can see, reading this, is how similar that sounds to being grounded for the new normal teen. Its complete social isolation, and I hope the backlash the author receives from this article gets considered instead of some snarky 'your anger means I'm right' response. > He would eat an entire bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos—the party-size bag—if left alone with the opportunity This is hardly an example of an inability to make good decisions. This just shows the inability of these parents to let their kids learn on their own, and is creating the dependent teens they're trying to prevent.
notacoward 7y ago
> When did sitting at home isolated by closed doors and earbuds become a social life? When it became a reliable way to express meaning and feeling with other people. One can quibble about exactly when it became ubiquitous and high-bandwidth enough for that purpose, but for many people it's clearly that way now. Pining for the days when kids hung out at bowling alleys or overpasses is just nostalgia congealing into snobbishness.
johnsnowtho 7y ago
I wonder does a situation like this come up every 20 years? Like before it was TV, then Radio, then... books maybe? I guess the question is, is the internet worse or more addictive than these other distractions.
gwbas1c 7y ago
Just curious: Any parents in this thread? When did you give your kids smartphones? We're at the point where we replace our phones every two years, and plan on letting our kids use the old ones. (Probably wifi-only, mostly to keep costs under control.)
- holdenc 7y ago
  It's a short trip between 15 and 18 years old. Treat a 15 year old like a baby, and they'll be making up for lost time their first year away from home. A 15 year deserves a smart phone, but should respect the house rules on when it's ok to use.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - jonstokes 7y ago
    I'm a parent of three girls, the oldest of which is 10. None of them will have smartphones, probably not even in high school. I run my house pretty much like the author of the article -- there are gadgets on the weekend, only. And even then the internet-connected ones are very carefully controlled and there are a ton of rules. But you know what? My kids aren't babied. My oldest and I just went to a two-day rifle shooting clinic, and the two oldest have knives of their own that are very sharp and that they can use whenever they want. They hike in the woods by our house, unsupervised, and they ride horses and swim. They climb trees. They camp in a tent in the woods by the house. As for their peers? Those poor kids have never even touched a sharp knife, much less been given one of their own. My kids are well aware that they're allowed to take a lot more risks than their peers, and that they're given more responsibility for their own safety. They're not babied. Rather, the kids who stay indoors on a gadget are the ones who are babied and stunted. They're the ones whose parents have infantilized them. A kid doesn't "deserve" a smartphone. What they deserve is a childhood. They deserve to be bored for long stretches and to have to make up their own games and stuff to do. They deserve the privacy of their own thoughts, and to not be tethered to a gadget that they can't put down. They deserve flesh-and-blood relationships, instead of jerky pixels and audio. They deserve a life, and not just an existence.
Hitton 7y ago
It would be interesting to know if the mother herself has and uses smartphone. If yes it seems like smartphones for me but not for thee, 14 year is too old to protect from harm of phone usage. It's not too different from fundamentalist parents banning their kids from having outsider friends/watching TV/dating. It seems that the mom is just flexing her power over the kids.
jonstokes 7y ago
I think it's amazing that on a site that's supposedly filled with tech geeks, so few commenters seem to know the difference between spending time alone in your room in front a non-networked PC learning to code, and being glued to a networked smartphone no matter where you are, taking in a feed and waiting for the dopamine hit from a "like" or a share. Anyway, the public-spirited side of me sees responses like the ones here and is depressed, but my secret inner libertarian sees them and thinks: "Score! My three kids will have attention spans and social skills, and will out-compete the smartphone-addicted children of these fools in every arena of adult life. So by all means, cripple your kids by handing them one of these pocket slot machines. Mwuahahaha"
- non-entity 7y ago
  > My three kids will have attention spans and social skills, and will out-compete the smartphone-addicted children of these fools in every arena of adult life. until, you know, they decide to buy a smartphone as an adult, and over consume then
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - bigtunacan 7y ago
    They will still have had almost an 18 year learning advantage at that point.
- notacoward 7y ago
  Yeah, cripple your kids by allowing them to participate in adolescent social life the same way their peers do, making it easier to make and maintain such ties later in life. What a horrible fate.
snow_mac 7y ago
My son is 8... there is no way in hell I'm going to let him have a smartphone. I mean, he poops in pants still and can't hold his pacifier in his mouth on his own. Why am I going to give him a $1,000 smartphone? His crib wasn't that expensive... 8 is too early to a kid to have a smartphone.
- senectus1 7y ago
  Still poops in his pants at 8? You might want to get that checked out.
- bigtunacan 7y ago
  If your son is 8 and is really still pooping his pants and using a pacifier then I really feel for you as you must be dealing with more serious issues than worrying about smart phones. Good luck and stay strong.
werber 7y ago
https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int/nokia-2720-flip https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int/nokia-2720-flip something like this seems like a happy medium
opportune 7y ago
I would put this on par with being an anti-vaxxer. Not only are the kids not allowed smartphones but their internet access is apparently strictly monitored well into their teens. Good way to get your kids to hate you as soon as they move our. The author is just longing for an era that’s gone. It’s funny she mentions hanging out under bridges, drinking, and dating while also probably never letting her kids get anywhere close to a situation where that is possible. And won’t let her kids make mistakes even regarding food, and complains about kids these days not wanting to drive. You would think this is some kind of satire making fun of boomers (even though the author is technically not one) This is, in my opinion, a terrible parenting style. Smartphones are a part of life these days. You wouldn’t have your kids ride a horse drawn carriage wearing handmade blouses to school, and bemoan the fact they won’t play outside with a hoop and a stick, just because that’s the way it was when you grew up
- jonstokes 7y ago
  The reason being an anti-vaxxer is bad is because of a concept called "herd immunity." There is no analog, here. I think that not only do you not understand much about kids, but you also don't understand the analogy you're trying to use.
  - opportune 7y ago
    I guess I mean it’s more along the lines of crazy-parenting that hurts kids. > I think that not only do you not understand much about kids, but you also don't understand the analogy you're trying to use. I understand herd immunity lol but thank you for the lesson
nafizh 7y ago
Traditionally, people didn't need to go out of their way to make so many outside friends as the extended family provided all the relationships and connections that you need for mental well being. Besides, with extended families, the community was much more strong, everyone knew everyone providing the connections outside of family many people crave now. With the collapse of the extended family system, now people are siloed, and have to go out of their way to make new connections. These real life connections might help you temporarily socialize but very few turn into meaningful long term ones, and the connections that you make on social media are facetious.
francisofascii 7y ago
It is frustrating how this is driven by those first parents that have no limits. Kids complain that they don't want to be left out, normal, middle of the road parents cave in, thus forcing the hold out parents to eventually cave.
secabeen 7y ago
I do wonder if the push to virtual interactions over physical ones is driven by the rise of afterschool care for kids in dual-income families. My kids are at home after school, but there are few other kids out playing. Most of the kids in our neighborhood aren't home in the afternoons, are there aren't groups of kids playing in the parks unsupervised. The parks are largely used by pre-school ages kids with nannies, or for family groups after dinner. The smartphone allows kids to stay in contact with their friends even when they are otherwise occupied with sports, aftercare, etc. etc.
chooseaname 7y ago
Far be it from me to tell anyone how to raise their children, but here's my opinion on this matter. First, it's about trust. Trust starts when they're infants. They cry, you show up. They cry, you show up. They have to know that when they have a need, you provide for it. Trust is also about leading by example. Be the person you want your children to be. If you don't want them on Facebook, don't be on Facebook. If you don't want them to use a smartphone at the table, don't bring yours to the table. Will this, in reality, mean they'll not use Facebook or bring their phones to the table? Maybe, maybe not. You don't want robots. You want independent humans. You're a guide, an example, that's all. Be the best one you can be. But when they do bring their phone to the table, you will have, from birth, built up enough trust to be able to have a conversation about it with them. They'll talk to you because they trust you. When you have a concern that you think they're forming an addiction to their phone, they'll talk to you, because you've earned their trust.
- icebraining 7y ago
  > They'll talk to you because they trust you What if they don't? I've met a few parents who thought they had parenting nailed. Then they had another child.
  - chooseaname 7y ago
    Could be the child doesn't trust the parents. Could be other factors like maybe something changed in the parent-child relationship that the parent didn't notice. There's always counseling.
coreyp_1 7y ago
Smartphone addiction is like alcohol addiction. Why do some countries (the USA) have more problems than than others (the rest of the world)? Because in most countries, a healthy, controlled exposure is what most teens experience, so that they learn how to handle alcohol responsibly. In almost all of the USA, it's illegal to drink until you're 21. Not teaching your children how to responsibly use a smartphone is the current problem. Denying a child a smartphone, and then expecting them to magically be able to control such an addictive substance is arguably worse. Be a better parent.
- emblaegh 7y ago
  Never been to the US, but I never had the impression that Americans had more problems with alcohol than, say, Europe (if anything the stereotype goes the opposite way). A quick google search seems to point that Americans die more of alcohol related accidents? That could be just because Americans drive more.
stanski 7y ago
My initial reaction is to agree with this parent's policy because I don't really like smartphones. The problem is you just kind of need them even if you're not a big social media user. As a grown up, I've considered giving up my own smart phone but friends use whatsapp/viber, traffic in the city is getting worse every year and an app like Waze becomes essential, depending on what you do, reading and replying to email while on the go can be pretty important. Similarly, growing up in a society where your peers connect pretty much exclusively via social media, you simply need it if you want to even remotely fit in (like others have pointed out). Not having a smart phone is not the end of the world (for me or the teenagers in question) but there will be daily negative consequences. The problem is not the tech itself but the way it's being used. It's the whole reason I don't really like having a smart phone (while also enjoying many of its features). I want a utilitarian tool that gets done what I need done. If I use a socket wrench to remove a bolt, I expect the wrench to just do it. I don't want it telling me about some fancier wrench available or a better bolt to use in the future or anything else I didn't ask of it. What I get instead is a platform where I can be targetted, sometimes obviously, sometimes invisibly, as a potential customer of some business. On top of all that, you know the device is easily damaged and doesn't last very long because of a quickly degrading battery. And good luck finding a good quality battery after 2 years or even easily replacing it. Screws are the biggest faux pas you can now commit as a manufacturer. You'd probably sell more units if some of them spontaneously combust than if they aren't all smooth and glossy. Any attempt to make a human-centric smart phone (and underlying OS) is doomed to failure because of cost. But hey, current smartphones is what people want so what do I know. Anyway. Did I mention I don't like smart phones?
plughs 7y ago
I feel like this article conflates 'smart device' with 'phone' in a way that can often happend My 8 year old has one of our old phones with WiFi only. It's still plenty addictive with with the thrill of games and TV. If you wait to talk about smart phone addiction until your kid gets cell service you're probably going to miss the boat. As my kid gets older - well the author may sneer at your kid waiting a few minutes to get picked up from soccer practice but that minimizes the issue. When I was a kid it was a collect call from "I'm-at-the-library-pick-me-up-by-5". I think there's a lot to be said for giving a kid flexibility in their movements. That may mean a 'dumb' phone, which I would consider, but it doesn't mean no phones whatsoever. I think the other counter-point I would make to the author is that the best time to start talking to your kids about smart phones may well be while they're still on premise, and still respect and trust you. I've ( somewhat reluctantly ) setup my kid with ( facebook ) kids messenger and a Roblox account. She only has access on my phone so her time is limited, and it's also led to a lot of good discussions about internet predator and pressure to pay for in-game upsells. Most importantly ( IMO ) is talking about how easy it is for social interactions to lead to problems - getting bullied, being a bully, the blow to her self esteem if her friends seem to be chatting with each other and leaving her out. It's really hard to navigate, and it doesn't go away if she gets her first smartphone at 18. I don't know if I really can protect her from it but perhaps I can let her know that I understand, and she can talk to me
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
ykevinator 7y ago
The ego on this person.
yanko 7y ago
I have set same policy to my kids one on teenage 16 and she is perfectly happy with keys-calls only phone used rarely But having all high end features and enough freedom at home But yet almost no social networks exposure by choice

43 points by danso 7y ago

yes - resisting change is always a good idea.....sheesh

>> I believe that a smartphone too accessible, given too early, and in the wrong hands is at best an addictive distraction and at worst a handheld siphon draining away children’s youth one beep, one swipe, one notification at a time. I support a parent's right to choose for their kids, but this seems very naive, and not far off the "No good will come of you spending all that time on the computer, go outside and play" line my own mother used to spin, and the fears that having computers in the house would warp kids of the 80s. In reality I had no deficit of outside time, or sports at school, she just took against tech early on. She just got a (dumb) mobile phone about two years ago and rarely uses it. The real root of the fear here seems to be that your child might have a different upbringing to your own, one you don't understand. I have no doubt the kids will be fine, if a little peeved at Mom for denying them common forms and channels of social interaction their peers indulge in.

danso 7y ago
As someone who grew up with a computer in the household in the 80s, I don't think the two situations are comparable. For one, a computer back then (and even today) is much less geared toward consumption (versus creation) than phones are. Second, being able to carry a phone with you and use it all day makes it a fundamentally different influence.
- tjansen 7y ago
  Not sure where you grew up, but where I grew up most kids spent at least 95% of their computer time playing games.
  - danso 7y ago
    Yeah I played a lot of games too, but it was still a machine that was geared toward you doing work – even when playing games (besides qbasic, configuring .bat and .ini files were my first foray into hacking and programming). And reading USENET was not as addictive or as mind-dulling as infinitely scrolling on Instagram and Facebook
  - icebraining 7y ago
    Same. Either gaming or on mIRC, flirting. Very few created anything or even knew more than the basics about computers.
BaconJuice 7y ago
I just rolled my eyes when I saw the title here and I rolled my eyes harder when I read what Sarah had to say. Your points are exactly what my thoughts are. I remember my grandmother use to tell my mother to tell me to stop using the computer so much and go outside and play. Like you said I had a great social life but any time I was on the computer learning to code it was apparently bad for me. My parents didn't really understand the opportunities something like a computer had in the future just like Sarah over here doesn't understand smart phones. All Sarah sees is the negatives just like my parents so the negatives of using a computer. Yes there is a risk of having to have that unpleasant convo with your kids about whats right and wrong and being responsible with your phone..but isn't that what parents are suppose to do? Teach your kids what's right and wrong instead of just denying them of things you don't understand? </endrant>

non-entity 7y ago

Interesting. My parents similarly never got me or my siblings smartphones (in retrospect it may have been a financial thing, though). I was 18 before I bought my own (only a few year ago!) I've never met another person in this sort of situation. Most other people I knew had their parents eventually get them one early in HS. There were definitely negative effects. I imagine mostly social and nowadays inconsequential to an extent. I'm still to this day rather isolated, both from my family and peers On the flip side I had an incredible attention span and was able to learn anything I wanted with persistence. I'm simply not able to do that anymore. That being said, I don't think I'd so the same for my kids.

dukoid 7y ago

"My boys are not like the kid I met in college who had grown up without TV and didn’t appreciate the cultural relevancy of Bo and Luke Duke or George Jefferson. My kids readily quote Ron Swanson and Dwight Shrute." -- I bet the "no TV" parents had a similar defense citing radio access....

chuckgreenman 7y ago

I see the smart phone addiction problem as similar to the food addiction problem, you have to eat and if you want to have a good modern job you have to have a cell phone. Part of becoming an adult is learning about the temptations of life and how to manage them. Ultimately I think this is a disservice in the long term, by shielding their kids from technology they also shield them from the development of the self control muscle. The great author/comedian John Hodgeman once said "it's their time to waste" in response to someone who wrote into his advice column about their teens seeming to waste their time as a teen. Unfortunately, goofing off and wasting time is a thing I think most people need to do for some segment of their lives until they become sick of it and decide to get in gear.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

y4mi 7y ago

This is clearly written by an adult who forgot how most children behave. If they're the only ones without a smartphone, they'll be single out. Especially with how prevalent online communication has become. They might not be bullied (though they probably will be), but growing up as the outsider comes with is own can of worms. They'll most likely survive it, but it'll have it's effect... But everything has consequences so I guess ymmv. It's just kinda annoying to constantly read about these parents making tech into something harmful (which it obviously can be) and their own great strategy to counter this, which has at least as many dangers for their mental health as the alternative had.

ergothus 7y ago
I think your take is valid, but also missing large areas. Even if they AREN'T bullied for lack, they'll miss out on all the socialization. When I was a teen people talked on the phone, they hung out at the mall. I barely did. When not at school, I stayed at home to care for my younger brother and make sure dinner was made (child of a working single mom). I went out of state to my dad's place every summer, so I never spent summer vacation around my school peers. Now I'm an adult, and I don't have close friends. I never have. I don't know how to open up to people, or how to hang out with people where it isn't an obligation on one part or the other. I remain aloof, then desperately overshare (case in point), then feel awkward and embarrassed and withdraw. I've had two serious relationships in my life...and got married both times. Today's kids won't be talking on the phone, they won't be texting, they won't even be tweeting, they'll be snapping or instagramming or any number of things. They'll be sharing the experiences they have in common and generating those experiences, and for many, MANY of them those experiences will be around smartphone tech. And this author has decided their kids don't need that shared experience. That comes at a cost.
- kome 7y ago
  yeah, but let's not mix too many things together. you can have a smartphone (I don't) and be very miserable and lonely (i’m not). I bet that's even the daily experience of a lot teenagers. A smartphone may help to get in contact with people, but it's not a necessity by a far stretch. Again: a (sometimes painful) emotional and social education is what teenagers need. Soft skills are hard to learn.

lol_jono 7y ago

ok boomer

dang 7y ago
Can you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? You've done it a lot and we ban accounts that do that repeatedly. We're trying for a bit better than internet default here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- lol_jono 7y ago
  ok

1shooner 7y ago

>I think my boys feel the same way about smartphones that I felt about Guess jeans—the ones with zippers at the ankles—in 1984. All the cool, pretty girls had a pair. My desire for the jeans was more about fitting in with the crowd than about the jeans themselves. The author is conflating 'fitting in' with communicating.

ViViDboarder 7y ago
I don’t know. They mention that they allow them to text and message friends from their tablet when at home. Essentially it is merely avoiding distraction at school.

docker_up 7y ago

My friend recently got his sons a smartphone and he says their relationship has been irrevocably damaged because of it. Not because they are rude, etc. But when they used to talk, now it's complete silence and them looking at their phones, chatting with their friends or girlfriends. He hates the phones now because there is no socialization whatsoever with his kids. The power of the phone is that strong, and he had such a close relationship with his sons.

leetcrew 7y ago
one possible interpretation of this story is: when given the option, the son prefers to talk to his friends instead of his parent. the phone is not the culprit here; it merely revealed a pre-existing preference.
- josephwegner 7y ago
  I think you're spot on, and this is part of the reason I will have "no phones* after dinner/school/whatever" when my kids become smartphone age. I expect I will have similar rules about headphones in cars, or tablets at restaurant tables. If my relationship with my kid's is falling apart, I want to have some sort of signal that alerts me to it happening. I want it to feel awkward, so that I know to fix it. If the damage is masked behind a screen, I might miss it and never know to repair it. * or whatever the new distracting device is in ~10 years.
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    I think my point suggests the opposite conclusion: arbitrary electronics bans are counterproductive. if your kid chooses the device over interacting with you, that is a strong sign that something is wrong; this is the signal you are looking for! if you remove the choice by prohibiting the device during "family time", you are just removing a source of information. my parents never told us we couldn't use our phones at dinner, but they did explain that when we did it, we were signaling that what we were doing with the phone was more interesting/important than family dinner. I decided that wasn't the message I wanted to give my parents, so I would only pull out the phone for time-sensitive communications. a little bit of respect can go a long way.

grahamel 7y ago

it's a shame we don't hear the kids side in the article people I know who have done this have eventually changed and allowed/bought a phone as the in school peer pressure was huge and the kids ended up feeling excluded from their social groups as not fitting in (nothing wrong with kids finding their own path btw)

helpPeople 7y ago
I think there is going to be a major technology gap next generation. Nerds vs Luddites vs Apple users. Each will have a vastly different understanding of technology.

tiborsaas 7y ago

She just basically forced her 14 year old to come up with a way to buy a smartphone himself.

j-c-hewitt 7y ago
They're pretty cheap, so maybe 5 or 6 mowed lawns.
theandrewbailey 7y ago
... provided that she permits the 14 year old to buy one.
- icebraining 7y ago
  Or the 14 year old does it behind their backs.
  - beatgammit 7y ago
    How would they get a plan? I thought you had to be an adult to get most cell plans, though I guess prepaid plans might work.
    - icebraining 7y ago
      Yeah, where I live, prepaid is the norm, so I didn't even think of that. Still, I know teenagers who get by with just wifi.
- tiborsaas 7y ago
  With this move she forced him to lie about it as well. Like teenagers are really great at appealing to authority.

benjohnson 7y ago

In my opinion, it's better to teach your children moderation while they're young and can learn to spot temptation and learn how to moderate themselves. A young adult that grows up without these trials may be ill prepared for all the things that tempt them when they gain their Independence.

non-entity 7y ago
My parents we're very authoritarian. Not really your typical helicopter parents, or religious fundamentalist parents, but aspects of those did make their way into parenting. The strangest thing to me was hearing about how things were much better when they were kids because kid did this and that, but then discouraged us from doing similar things.

TacticalTable 7y ago

> They text, they Snap—but only on weekends and a little bit this past summer All I can see, reading this, is how similar that sounds to being grounded for the new normal teen. Its complete social isolation, and I hope the backlash the author receives from this article gets considered instead of some snarky 'your anger means I'm right' response. > He would eat an entire bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos—the party-size bag—if left alone with the opportunity This is hardly an example of an inability to make good decisions. This just shows the inability of these parents to let their kids learn on their own, and is creating the dependent teens they're trying to prevent.

notacoward 7y ago

> When did sitting at home isolated by closed doors and earbuds become a social life? When it became a reliable way to express meaning and feeling with other people. One can quibble about exactly when it became ubiquitous and high-bandwidth enough for that purpose, but for many people it's clearly that way now. Pining for the days when kids hung out at bowling alleys or overpasses is just nostalgia congealing into snobbishness.

johnsnowtho 7y ago

I wonder does a situation like this come up every 20 years? Like before it was TV, then Radio, then... books maybe? I guess the question is, is the internet worse or more addictive than these other distractions.

gwbas1c 7y ago

Just curious: Any parents in this thread? When did you give your kids smartphones? We're at the point where we replace our phones every two years, and plan on letting our kids use the old ones. (Probably wifi-only, mostly to keep costs under control.)

holdenc 7y ago
It's a short trip between 15 and 18 years old. Treat a 15 year old like a baby, and they'll be making up for lost time their first year away from home. A 15 year deserves a smart phone, but should respect the house rules on when it's ok to use.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- jonstokes 7y ago
  I'm a parent of three girls, the oldest of which is 10. None of them will have smartphones, probably not even in high school. I run my house pretty much like the author of the article -- there are gadgets on the weekend, only. And even then the internet-connected ones are very carefully controlled and there are a ton of rules. But you know what? My kids aren't babied. My oldest and I just went to a two-day rifle shooting clinic, and the two oldest have knives of their own that are very sharp and that they can use whenever they want. They hike in the woods by our house, unsupervised, and they ride horses and swim. They climb trees. They camp in a tent in the woods by the house. As for their peers? Those poor kids have never even touched a sharp knife, much less been given one of their own. My kids are well aware that they're allowed to take a lot more risks than their peers, and that they're given more responsibility for their own safety. They're not babied. Rather, the kids who stay indoors on a gadget are the ones who are babied and stunted. They're the ones whose parents have infantilized them. A kid doesn't "deserve" a smartphone. What they deserve is a childhood. They deserve to be bored for long stretches and to have to make up their own games and stuff to do. They deserve the privacy of their own thoughts, and to not be tethered to a gadget that they can't put down. They deserve flesh-and-blood relationships, instead of jerky pixels and audio. They deserve a life, and not just an existence.

Hitton 7y ago

It would be interesting to know if the mother herself has and uses smartphone. If yes it seems like smartphones for me but not for thee, 14 year is too old to protect from harm of phone usage. It's not too different from fundamentalist parents banning their kids from having outsider friends/watching TV/dating. It seems that the mom is just flexing her power over the kids.

jonstokes 7y ago

I think it's amazing that on a site that's supposedly filled with tech geeks, so few commenters seem to know the difference between spending time alone in your room in front a non-networked PC learning to code, and being glued to a networked smartphone no matter where you are, taking in a feed and waiting for the dopamine hit from a "like" or a share. Anyway, the public-spirited side of me sees responses like the ones here and is depressed, but my secret inner libertarian sees them and thinks: "Score! My three kids will have attention spans and social skills, and will out-compete the smartphone-addicted children of these fools in every arena of adult life. So by all means, cripple your kids by handing them one of these pocket slot machines. Mwuahahaha"

non-entity 7y ago
> My three kids will have attention spans and social skills, and will out-compete the smartphone-addicted children of these fools in every arena of adult life. until, you know, they decide to buy a smartphone as an adult, and over consume then
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- bigtunacan 7y ago
  They will still have had almost an 18 year learning advantage at that point.
notacoward 7y ago
Yeah, cripple your kids by allowing them to participate in adolescent social life the same way their peers do, making it easier to make and maintain such ties later in life. What a horrible fate.

snow_mac 7y ago

My son is 8... there is no way in hell I'm going to let him have a smartphone. I mean, he poops in pants still and can't hold his pacifier in his mouth on his own. Why am I going to give him a $1,000 smartphone? His crib wasn't that expensive... 8 is too early to a kid to have a smartphone.

senectus1 7y ago
Still poops in his pants at 8? You might want to get that checked out.
bigtunacan 7y ago
If your son is 8 and is really still pooping his pants and using a pacifier then I really feel for you as you must be dealing with more serious issues than worrying about smart phones. Good luck and stay strong.

werber 7y ago

https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int/nokia-2720-flip https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int/nokia-2720-flip something like this seems like a happy medium

opportune 7y ago

I would put this on par with being an anti-vaxxer. Not only are the kids not allowed smartphones but their internet access is apparently strictly monitored well into their teens. Good way to get your kids to hate you as soon as they move our. The author is just longing for an era that’s gone. It’s funny she mentions hanging out under bridges, drinking, and dating while also probably never letting her kids get anywhere close to a situation where that is possible. And won’t let her kids make mistakes even regarding food, and complains about kids these days not wanting to drive. You would think this is some kind of satire making fun of boomers (even though the author is technically not one) This is, in my opinion, a terrible parenting style. Smartphones are a part of life these days. You wouldn’t have your kids ride a horse drawn carriage wearing handmade blouses to school, and bemoan the fact they won’t play outside with a hoop and a stick, just because that’s the way it was when you grew up

jonstokes 7y ago
The reason being an anti-vaxxer is bad is because of a concept called "herd immunity." There is no analog, here. I think that not only do you not understand much about kids, but you also don't understand the analogy you're trying to use.
- opportune 7y ago
  I guess I mean it’s more along the lines of crazy-parenting that hurts kids. > I think that not only do you not understand much about kids, but you also don't understand the analogy you're trying to use. I understand herd immunity lol but thank you for the lesson

nafizh 7y ago

Traditionally, people didn't need to go out of their way to make so many outside friends as the extended family provided all the relationships and connections that you need for mental well being. Besides, with extended families, the community was much more strong, everyone knew everyone providing the connections outside of family many people crave now. With the collapse of the extended family system, now people are siloed, and have to go out of their way to make new connections. These real life connections might help you temporarily socialize but very few turn into meaningful long term ones, and the connections that you make on social media are facetious.

francisofascii 7y ago

It is frustrating how this is driven by those first parents that have no limits. Kids complain that they don't want to be left out, normal, middle of the road parents cave in, thus forcing the hold out parents to eventually cave.

secabeen 7y ago

I do wonder if the push to virtual interactions over physical ones is driven by the rise of afterschool care for kids in dual-income families. My kids are at home after school, but there are few other kids out playing. Most of the kids in our neighborhood aren't home in the afternoons, are there aren't groups of kids playing in the parks unsupervised. The parks are largely used by pre-school ages kids with nannies, or for family groups after dinner. The smartphone allows kids to stay in contact with their friends even when they are otherwise occupied with sports, aftercare, etc. etc.

chooseaname 7y ago

Far be it from me to tell anyone how to raise their children, but here's my opinion on this matter. First, it's about trust. Trust starts when they're infants. They cry, you show up. They cry, you show up. They have to know that when they have a need, you provide for it. Trust is also about leading by example. Be the person you want your children to be. If you don't want them on Facebook, don't be on Facebook. If you don't want them to use a smartphone at the table, don't bring yours to the table. Will this, in reality, mean they'll not use Facebook or bring their phones to the table? Maybe, maybe not. You don't want robots. You want independent humans. You're a guide, an example, that's all. Be the best one you can be. But when they do bring their phone to the table, you will have, from birth, built up enough trust to be able to have a conversation about it with them. They'll talk to you because they trust you. When you have a concern that you think they're forming an addiction to their phone, they'll talk to you, because you've earned their trust.

icebraining 7y ago
> They'll talk to you because they trust you What if they don't? I've met a few parents who thought they had parenting nailed. Then they had another child.
- chooseaname 7y ago
  Could be the child doesn't trust the parents. Could be other factors like maybe something changed in the parent-child relationship that the parent didn't notice. There's always counseling.

coreyp_1 7y ago

Smartphone addiction is like alcohol addiction. Why do some countries (the USA) have more problems than than others (the rest of the world)? Because in most countries, a healthy, controlled exposure is what most teens experience, so that they learn how to handle alcohol responsibly. In almost all of the USA, it's illegal to drink until you're 21. Not teaching your children how to responsibly use a smartphone is the current problem. Denying a child a smartphone, and then expecting them to magically be able to control such an addictive substance is arguably worse. Be a better parent.

emblaegh 7y ago
Never been to the US, but I never had the impression that Americans had more problems with alcohol than, say, Europe (if anything the stereotype goes the opposite way). A quick google search seems to point that Americans die more of alcohol related accidents? That could be just because Americans drive more.

stanski 7y ago

My initial reaction is to agree with this parent's policy because I don't really like smartphones. The problem is you just kind of need them even if you're not a big social media user. As a grown up, I've considered giving up my own smart phone but friends use whatsapp/viber, traffic in the city is getting worse every year and an app like Waze becomes essential, depending on what you do, reading and replying to email while on the go can be pretty important. Similarly, growing up in a society where your peers connect pretty much exclusively via social media, you simply need it if you want to even remotely fit in (like others have pointed out). Not having a smart phone is not the end of the world (for me or the teenagers in question) but there will be daily negative consequences. The problem is not the tech itself but the way it's being used. It's the whole reason I don't really like having a smart phone (while also enjoying many of its features). I want a utilitarian tool that gets done what I need done. If I use a socket wrench to remove a bolt, I expect the wrench to just do it. I don't want it telling me about some fancier wrench available or a better bolt to use in the future or anything else I didn't ask of it. What I get instead is a platform where I can be targetted, sometimes obviously, sometimes invisibly, as a potential customer of some business. On top of all that, you know the device is easily damaged and doesn't last very long because of a quickly degrading battery. And good luck finding a good quality battery after 2 years or even easily replacing it. Screws are the biggest faux pas you can now commit as a manufacturer. You'd probably sell more units if some of them spontaneously combust than if they aren't all smooth and glossy. Any attempt to make a human-centric smart phone (and underlying OS) is doomed to failure because of cost. But hey, current smartphones is what people want so what do I know. Anyway. Did I mention I don't like smart phones?

plughs 7y ago

I feel like this article conflates 'smart device' with 'phone' in a way that can often happend My 8 year old has one of our old phones with WiFi only. It's still plenty addictive with with the thrill of games and TV. If you wait to talk about smart phone addiction until your kid gets cell service you're probably going to miss the boat. As my kid gets older - well the author may sneer at your kid waiting a few minutes to get picked up from soccer practice but that minimizes the issue. When I was a kid it was a collect call from "I'm-at-the-library-pick-me-up-by-5". I think there's a lot to be said for giving a kid flexibility in their movements. That may mean a 'dumb' phone, which I would consider, but it doesn't mean no phones whatsoever. I think the other counter-point I would make to the author is that the best time to start talking to your kids about smart phones may well be while they're still on premise, and still respect and trust you. I've ( somewhat reluctantly ) setup my kid with ( facebook ) kids messenger and a Roblox account. She only has access on my phone so her time is limited, and it's also led to a lot of good discussions about internet predator and pressure to pay for in-game upsells. Most importantly ( IMO ) is talking about how easy it is for social interactions to lead to problems - getting bullied, being a bully, the blow to her self esteem if her friends seem to be chatting with each other and leaving her out. It's really hard to navigate, and it doesn't go away if she gets her first smartphone at 18. I don't know if I really can protect her from it but perhaps I can let her know that I understand, and she can talk to me

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

ykevinator 7y ago

The ego on this person.

yanko 7y ago

I have set same policy to my kids one on teenage 16 and she is perfectly happy with keys-calls only phone used rarely But having all high end features and enough freedom at home But yet almost no social networks exposure by choice