I Won’t Buy My Teenagers Smartphones
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I Won’t Buy My Teenagers Smartphones
1–10 of 114 posts
Re: I Won’t Buy My Teenagers Smartphones
#2yes - resisting change is always a good idea.....sheesh
Re: I Won’t Buy My Teenagers Smartphones
#3>> 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.
Re: I Won’t Buy My Teenagers Smartphones
#4Interesting. 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.
Re: I Won’t Buy My Teenagers Smartphones
#5"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....
Re: I Won’t Buy My Teenagers Smartphones
#6I 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.
Re: I Won’t Buy My Teenagers Smartphones
#7This 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.
Re: I Won’t Buy My Teenagers Smartphones
#8ok boomer
Re: I Won’t Buy My Teenagers Smartphones
#9>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.
Re: I Won’t Buy My Teenagers Smartphones
#10>> 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"…
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.