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I hope that by the time my 2 year old is in middle school, it’s fairly normal for parents to keep their kids off of social media and smart phones.

jader201 2y ago
To the OP's point, without some collective support, I don't anticipate this happening. In fact, you'll likely have to deal with this as early as elementary school.
- sarchertech 2y ago
  At least among my peer group, there’s clear support for holding off on smart phones for kids until at least high school, so I have hope.
trey-jones 2y ago
Like the other commenter in this thread who says "... not social suicide ..." I would suggest just implementing the rules yourself regardless of what society is doing. The trend (as you can imagine) is definitely still going younger and younger. And unless you have the funds to fight off the marketing teams of Google and Apple, I imagine that will continue. My kids are fine. Even with their parents fighting tooth and nail to keep them off devices as much as possible, they will still be on them sometimes (in your home or out of it). Maybe my kids are just weird to not be craving social media - just being able to send text messages to her friends seems to be enough for my 14 year old currently. Is that the same thing? My observations say "definitely not". They complain about it sometimes, (and I complain about their usage sometimes) but nobody is really angry and everybody is really reasonable. Your mileage may vary.
- inglor_cz 2y ago
  "My kids are fine." ... "Your mileage may vary." It almost certainly does. People are wildly different in their susceptibility to alcohol, gambling etc. We should expect the same wild variability when it comes to social networks.
31337Logic 2y ago
For everyone's sake, I hope you're right.
vundercind 2y ago
From what I’ve seen right now it depends on SES. Fussellian middle class in a suburban school: will call your kid poor and bully them if they don’t have a recent phone by 6th grade (often much earlier) Fussellian upper-middle in expensive private school: may not have a phone themselves until high school (handy for keeping in touch when at college-application-building extra curriculars), won’t make fun of kids whose parents don’t give them phone.
- bitwize 2y ago
  I think you unlocked some core memories for me. When I was a kid I moved from a rich suburban New England town to one that was considerably more working class. When I lived in the rich town, no one talked about how much money the other kids' parents had, I guess because everybody was rich. When I lived in the working class town, everybody knew who the rich kid was and who the poor kids were, and where you shopped could get you admired or bullied. Wearing clothes from K-mart was a fast track to becoming a pariah.
- Vegenoid 2y ago
  What does “Fussellian” mean?
  - vundercind 2y ago
    Fussell’s definition of the various classes in America in Class. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class:_A_Guide_Through_the_American_Status_System https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class:_A_Guide_Through_the_A... His “Middle” is characterized by a lot of class-anxiety and especially the twin characteristics of wanting to appear like the upper-middle or upper classes, while having very wrong ideas about how those two classes “signal”. His upper-middle is basically professional-class (doctors, lawyers, professors, bankers, finance) prep school sorts. Same as the main demographic covered in Birnbach’s The Official Preppy Handbook
dyauspitr 2y ago
In the same situation, I really hope so too.

jader201 2y ago

To the OP's point, without some collective support, I don't anticipate this happening. In fact, you'll likely have to deal with this as early as elementary school.

sarchertech 2y ago
At least among my peer group, there’s clear support for holding off on smart phones for kids until at least high school, so I have hope.

trey-jones 2y ago

Like the other commenter in this thread who says "... not social suicide ..." I would suggest just implementing the rules yourself regardless of what society is doing. The trend (as you can imagine) is definitely still going younger and younger. And unless you have the funds to fight off the marketing teams of Google and Apple, I imagine that will continue. My kids are fine. Even with their parents fighting tooth and nail to keep them off devices as much as possible, they will still be on them sometimes (in your home or out of it). Maybe my kids are just weird to not be craving social media - just being able to send text messages to her friends seems to be enough for my 14 year old currently. Is that the same thing? My observations say "definitely not". They complain about it sometimes, (and I complain about their usage sometimes) but nobody is really angry and everybody is really reasonable. Your mileage may vary.

inglor_cz 2y ago
"My kids are fine." ... "Your mileage may vary." It almost certainly does. People are wildly different in their susceptibility to alcohol, gambling etc. We should expect the same wild variability when it comes to social networks.

31337Logic 2y ago

For everyone's sake, I hope you're right.

vundercind 2y ago

From what I’ve seen right now it depends on SES. Fussellian middle class in a suburban school: will call your kid poor and bully them if they don’t have a recent phone by 6th grade (often much earlier) Fussellian upper-middle in expensive private school: may not have a phone themselves until high school (handy for keeping in touch when at college-application-building extra curriculars), won’t make fun of kids whose parents don’t give them phone.

bitwize 2y ago
I think you unlocked some core memories for me. When I was a kid I moved from a rich suburban New England town to one that was considerably more working class. When I lived in the rich town, no one talked about how much money the other kids' parents had, I guess because everybody was rich. When I lived in the working class town, everybody knew who the rich kid was and who the poor kids were, and where you shopped could get you admired or bullied. Wearing clothes from K-mart was a fast track to becoming a pariah.
Vegenoid 2y ago
What does “Fussellian” mean?
- vundercind 2y ago
  Fussell’s definition of the various classes in America in Class. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class:_A_Guide_Through_the_American_Status_System https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class:_A_Guide_Through_the_A... His “Middle” is characterized by a lot of class-anxiety and especially the twin characteristics of wanting to appear like the upper-middle or upper classes, while having very wrong ideas about how those two classes “signal”. His upper-middle is basically professional-class (doctors, lawyers, professors, bankers, finance) prep school sorts. Same as the main demographic covered in Birnbach’s The Official Preppy Handbook

dyauspitr 2y ago

In the same situation, I really hope so too.