Our school says that every single time a kid gets a notification or call, everyone gets distracted, and that's why they are not allowing any one carry phone/smart watch.
Which I totally agree with.
Wait Until 8th
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Re: Wait Until 8th
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
IMO it's not the phone itself that matters, it's what the kids do on it. Phone can be good to communicate with parents, bad for nearly anything else at a young age.
Kids entire social lives run on their phones. Covid accelerated this and pushed down the age for where this was true. Denying your kid a smart phone is basically denying them a social life nowadays. It simply doesn't work unless everyone does it.
I’d say cell phone penetration is sitting at about 25% with my 6th graders friend cohort and that seems to hold up when I talk to my friends with kids.
I don’t know if that will hold until 8th grade but for now my kids social life seems to revolve around the neighborhood, school and his activities.
I was under the impression phones/social networks were becoming unpopular. My kid certainly has a dim view of the latter.
Re: Wait Until 8th
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
the beginning of secondary school, if that phrase is more known outside US
Two years after the begininng of secondary school; in general lower-secondary starts around age 11, and in the US it usually begins with Junior High which is often, but not always, 7th grade,
In the UK ages 12-13 are typically Year 7 of secondary school.
Re: Wait Until 8th
#64If we've built something harmful here, why are we only protecting the kids from it? There's got to be a way to handle this more directly.
Re: Wait Until 8th
#65In my area it's becoming very popular for schools (middle and high) to restrict phones. They put them in the pouch things. I'm a bit surprised how much the parents support it. Talking to a local journalist he said he couldn't find parents with good arguments against it. One of them was "my son runs an online business and needs access to his phone for it". I couldn't get a cell until I had a driver's license, which I…
> Today, a kid might be alienated without a phone.
That's really the point of a program like this. A lot of parents think smartphones (mainly social media, really) are a net negative for their kids, but we have this tragedy of the commons situation where no one wants their kid to be left out / socially isolated. Having this "wait until 8th" thing is basically parents playing the prisoner's dilemma getting together and agreeing that it we'd be much happier if everyone cooperates rather than defect on this issue.
Re: Wait Until 8th
#66I find it fascinating, that hacker news, the literal community for people tinkering with stuff seems to be full of people who want to gut their kids instead of teaching them how to use stuff responsibly.
Probably tons of people here know how to code since they've learned on their own.
Reality is that the kid will be a loser / outsider due to no phone. Also kids have a lot of time that could be used to learn stuff. And even playing games is... not that bad.
But I guess kids should learn chinese or what is the current fad now or torment the kid with 50 extraculliculars.
Re: Wait Until 8th
#67For non-americans: Apparently this corresponds to 13-14 years old.
Year 7 in the UK, which is the right age.
Re: Wait Until 8th
#68I'm going to post the same comment I did last year when this showed up on HN ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36207142 ), as checking the website it still seems to be true: Literally none of the evidence on the website's own "Why" page supports their suggestion: https://www.waituntil8th.org/why-wait All of the studies (bonus points for linking to news articles instead of directly to the studies) have something…
What age did you allow your kids to have a smartphone if you don’t mind me asking?
Re: Wait Until 8th
#69What does the “8th grade” mean?
8th school grade in the US which equates to around 13 years old.
Re: Wait Until 8th
#70I'm still surprised the "dumb phone for kids" and "dumb watch with basic comms" markets are so underdeveloped (from my perspective). I would love my kids to have (a) gps tracking, (b) ability to send texts/calls to like 5 predefined numbers, (c) tell the time, and nothing else. But watches all seem to have games or weird gamified fitness trackers (Google's new fitbit for kids). Or they are super kid-ish, like bright…
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