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The Wait Until 8th pledge

waituntil8th.org

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Re: The Wait Until 8th pledge

#21

Post by flatline »

voidhorse wrote: post #16
wpietri wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem parents often solve with a phone is not fun, but contact. When they are away from their kid, they want to know where the kid is, to be able to talk to them, and to have the kid able to call them. This is often especially important to divorced parents, who want to be able to contact the kid directly when at the other parent's house. The problem a kid often solves with the phone is also not fun, but social…

That makes sense. In that case it seems like the best thing would be a dumb phone, not a smart phone. Or, if a smartphone, one that's pretty limited in range of functionality, at least.

My ex tried that with my daughter. She was mortified by the dumb phone and would not take it with her or keep it charged. I cannot say that I blame her, it was just there so her mom could reach out to her whenever she liked. No benefit to the kid.

I got her a smart phone at age 12, going into 6th grade. She has to take the bus to school from my place. Sometimes she misses the bus and walks 2 miles home - sometimes with a friend, sometimes solo. The phone is a huge safety factor in all of this, I don’t know what I’d do without it. There are no pay phones. Waiting till the 8th grade feels like it’s coming from a place of tremendous privilege to me. That’s great if you can swing it!

Re: The Wait Until 8th pledge

#22

Post by voidhorse »

flatline wrote: post #21
voidhorse wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes sense. In that case it seems like the best thing would be a dumb phone, not a smart phone. Or, if a smartphone, one that's pretty limited in range of functionality, at least.

My ex tried that with my daughter. She was mortified by the dumb phone and would not take it with her or keep it charged. I cannot say that I blame her, it was just there so her mom could reach out to her whenever she liked. No benefit to the kid. I got her a smart phone at age 12, going into 6th grade. She has to take the bus to school from my place. Sometimes she misses the bus and walks 2 miles home - sometimes wi…

Yeah, it does seem like it'd be really circumstantial. Everyone's situations are different. That's kind of one of the big underlying problems with tech, it spreads virally and then becomes the baseline, even when that baseline harbors a bunch of potentially negative effects. I'm not surprised at all to hear that no kid today would want to be the weirdo with the dumb phone.

Re: The Wait Until 8th pledge

#23

Post by Spivak »

rottencupcakes wrote: post #17
cat_plus_plus wrote: post #10

Bah, it's just a tool, and important one for safety and avoiding unnecessary distress. It's up to parents to take care of technological limits and discipline, but it's not not an all or nothing deal. Especially during pandemic, how else were kids supposed to have any connection to peers? And without pandemic, what's wrong with cousins playing Minecraft while many hundreds of miles away from each other.

This isn't about not giving them computers is it? This is about not giving them smart phones.

And smart phones are the tools for that. That kind of chatting happens in group texts, iMessage, Snap, and IG.

Someone who is using their phone to talk to their IRL friends is doing better than sitting on their laptop, playing video games, or watching tv.

Phones are evil is how millennials become "back in my day" people apparently. Fascinating to watch it in real time.

Re: The Wait Until 8th pledge

#24

Post by flangola7 »

larusso wrote: post #19

The headline caught my eye because my birthday is on the 8th ;) But to the topic. I have 3 kids and only my daughter (over ten) has a phone. We gave her an old iPhone and I disabled everything from internet to blocking foreign numbers. She has books and music access and can write to her friends. I‘m really against opening the internet at her age because I see one not the point why she would need it at that age and be…

>zombie“ kids walking around only having conversations in little chunks between smartphone breaks

As an adult this is me and my friends, I don't see a problem with it. It's not like we're ignoring each other. I'm not sure why everyone is so hostile to kids having internet. I grew up watching YouTube and browsing Reddit on my phone too, that hasn't hurt me any.

Re: The Wait Until 8th pledge

#26

Post by jamesdepp »

I could get behind this, but only if my kids had open access to the internet via some other device. Phones are addicting and can be harmful (esp to younger teens), but it is crucial that young people have access to the resources the web can offer. It opens up opportunities and allows teens to find support resources when their family/school isn’t enough (LGBTQ+ kids in states like Florida come to mind).

The biggest reason I have found success in my career field is because I had such a head start on those I went to college with. I got into software development in middle school, and was in frequent communication with other people building software (who were significantly older than me). Most parents probably would have shut this down. My parents let this activity continue, and it turned into my career. The relationships I built then and the lessons I learned have been invaluable. This experience was only possible because I had unrestricted access to the web. My kids, once they are mature enough to handle that responsibility, will enjoy those same freedoms.

Re: The Wait Until 8th pledge

#27

Post by briga »

My 5-year old nephew has access to a smart phone along with social media accounts on the major platforms. Is it healthy? Probably not. Neither was my generation binging on TV and video games. But it also gives them access to an absurd wealth of information richer than any library I had growing up. How can a kid's mind not be absolutely entranced by that sort of thing? Telling a kid that they can't have a phone when they see their parents addicted to their phones reeks of "do as I say, not as I do"--I dunno about you but I didn't like being told that as a kid.

Maybe early exposure will act as a sort of mental inoculation to addictive algorithms. Maybe it will screw up a generation of kids. Maybe it'll better prepare them for wild changes technology is going to have in their lifetimes. Only time will tell. The experiment has already started

Re: The Wait Until 8th pledge

#28

Post by vxNsr »

flatline wrote: post #21
voidhorse wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes sense. In that case it seems like the best thing would be a dumb phone, not a smart phone. Or, if a smartphone, one that's pretty limited in range of functionality, at least.

My ex tried that with my daughter. She was mortified by the dumb phone and would not take it with her or keep it charged. I cannot say that I blame her, it was just there so her mom could reach out to her whenever she liked. No benefit to the kid. I got her a smart phone at age 12, going into 6th grade. She has to take the bus to school from my place. Sometimes she misses the bus and walks 2 miles home - sometimes wi…

Giving a child a smartphone is coming from a place of tremendous privilege. Phone plans aren’t cheap, phones aren’t cheap (at least phones that are usable aren’t). It’s baffling to me that you solved your problem by giving your child an incredibly addicting device that most child development experts compare to hard drugs.

Re: The Wait Until 8th pledge

#29

Post by turtlebits »

100% agree.

No kid needs their own dedicated device. This doesn't mean don't use social media/communication/chat, it just means setting limits on device use and not having it available to them any time of the day for as long as they want.

IME, setting limits helps them make smarter choices on what they want do on the device (instead of mindless infinity scrolling).

Re: The Wait Until 8th pledge

#30

Post by vxNsr »

parasubvert wrote: post #3

Yeah, how about no. Parent your kids to balance their screen time, and please keep them off social media as long as possible (or very supervised). But pledges like this are ridiculous, and remind me of how parents in the 80s thought the C64 or NES was going to rot kids brains, just like TV in the 70s.

Phones are incredibly addictive to both adults and kids. They are very damaging to relationships and social development. It’s fascinating that you think the answer is “do better”. This is literally that. Why are you so in favor of giving children something they have no need for and something that causes enormous stress anxiety and harm?

Kids who are online have been shown to be much more anxious, more depressed and less socially adjusted vs kids who are in peer groups that are kept offline for as long as possible.

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