Do you feel like it's bad for a child to have a cell phone?

[Flower7]

If so, is it better if the purpose of the phone is for the parents to be able to contact the child?

[nightdrot]

Brief answer - I think it is bad for adults to have cell phones. So, suffice to say, my plan is not to allow my children to have phones until they are, oh, around age 75.

The telephone - especially the cell phone - is like a mailman who comes barging into your house, shoves your mail in your face, demands that you open and read it out loud, and then stands there impatiently tapping his foot till you do. It is the worst of all modern cultural habits in one package.

It is forced social connection, it is the absence of any sense of propriety, its' i-phone version is the mistaking of quantities of information for the quality of information. This then conducing to a culture wherein the public assumes that it knows more than it does, that lives in its own moral universe and thus in which words no longer convey a sense of common meaning and in which the daily imperatives of etiquette and good manners are tossed out the window.

Thus you have churches where the service is interrupted by ring tones. Thus you have patrons at the store counter talking to the clerk and some distant acquaintance - the latter of whom the patron would otherwise not consent to sit in the same room with - at the same time. Thereby holding up the line.

Evelyn Waugh's character Scott King famously said, "I think it would be very wicked indeed to fit a boy for the modern world." This being my life's motto, I have bowed to necessity, but the phone is turned off at 8 in the evening, not turned on till 8 in the morning and is NEVER activated on Sundays but rather sits satisfyingly cold, silent and lifeless in my bedroom. There to remain until only the demands of commerce, business and the grim march of modernity forces me to reactivate it on Monday morning.

If by this point you can imagine my girlfriend rolling her eyes you have some sense of my life. However, I will not go quietly into that cold dark technological night and my children shall read books and play games and be familiarized with old fashioned manners before I release the phone to them and instill the Pavlovian response to bells that it inspires in contemporary humans.

Yes, neither I nor my children - their mom is lost, forever lost - will not go quietly into that cold dark night. No, never!!!

As you can tell, I have given this no thought whatsoever...

[RickPen]

As usual, nightdrot, you have a singular way of putting it. I quite agree.

[nightdrot]

@RickPen Thanks for your kind comments. On this one though, I am pretty sure I was inspired by God. Never has so much misery been incorporated into one hand held machine. In fact, I am pretty sure, if you read the literal translation of Genesis, the serpent tempted Adam not with a piece of fruit - you can find those in any grocery store, even in Eden - but with a cell phone.

After that, the deluge...

[RickPen]

Imagine the intrepid feeling of knowledge that came with that bite; the idea of technology. Of course, I'm musing, but humanity has an interesting chase after technology, with the results rarely being beneficial, particularly in the case of the smart phone. Deluge yet again seems rather fitting.

[nightdrot]

@RickPen Well, don't go too far. Technology has done many enormously good things. From curing polio to sending men into space and so on. It is the old line about how you can't live with it and you can't live without it.

There are no unmixed blessings. Man creates technologies and then is often both master and servant of those technologies. We create things that we then do not fully control.

The problem with the new communications technologies is that they tend to reinforce the very human habit of people to live in their own mental universe. When you can pull up the "answer" to any question, you will tend to assume that the answers you agreed with must be the right ones.

Indeed, the funny part is that the communications technologies of mass media in the early to mid-2oth century - it was feared - would have the very opposite effect. Because people were ALL drawing from the same television networks, the fear was that independent thought would be subsumed and diminished in mass thought.

Aristotle said virtue is a mean. So it is. The real problem being that people do not stop to reflect on how the tools that they use can end up using them.

[zeitgeist057]

@nightdrot Right on the money, here’s an interesting podcast talking about the race to the bottom of the brain stem caused by our technology and the algorithms within.
open.spotify.com/.../4tu5P35SSCM2nlv34dX9U9

[nightdrot]

@zeitgeist057 Thanks. I'll take a look at it.

[Reaperbot666]

• there are some benefits to a child having a cell phone. to keep in touch with friends and family. considering you can get phones with no data plan. so it is only good for texting and calling people.
• many won't even allow photo or video sharing without a data plan. can also remove the wifi card so they can't use it to surf the web that way.
• ideal a child shouldn't get an unlocked cell phone until. their able to both pay for the phone and the monthly plan themselves.
• plus many modern phone smarts these days have the ability to add parental locks or limitations.
• there are also companies that offer kids plans for children under 13 and/or 18. which can limits their ability view or use the intent, adult content, social media, photo sharing, video sharing, etc.
• or parents can save their older phones if in decent condition. to let their children use as hand me downs. because once a phone is to old it can really only be used to call and text people.

[aWes0MeNeSs]

It depends on what kind of phone, the age of the child, and what the phone is for. I got my first phone (a simple flip phone, as that was all that existed at the time) at age 11, which was for the purpose of contacting my parents. The phone was only capable of making phone calls, taking about 10 pictures and maybe 3 videos, and I had no Internet access on it, so there was no risk of me contacting online strangers or being on sites I shouldn't.

I think young kids having smartphones with unlimited Internet access is generally a bad idea, same with allowing them unlimited and unsupervised Internet access on a computer or tablet.

If the phone is to have a way to contact the parents, especially with the absence of payphones nowadays and how the world can be at times, I don't see an issue with it, but I don't think kids who are too young to fully understand the consequences of interacting with strangers online or being on inappropriate sites/apps should have free reign of a phone with those features. I think there is a way to kid-proof them, but I'm not exactly sure.

I really don't like the style of parenting where parents shove a phone or a tablet in a kid's face to shut them up or use them as a babysitter and allow them to do whatever they want online without supervision. That's mostly why YouTube has turned into such a cesspool (because they're catering to these types of parents by making almost everything revolve around kids on there now), not to mention it's dangerous considering your child can interact with anyone on there, and children are very impressionable.

[_food_lover234]

I. I mean yes it great to use a cell phone if my child ever needed to reach me, but I think using Instagram and the ability to download other apps that aren't really meant for children who are around 6-12, isn't a great move. when I was 10 or so, I never got a phone to reach my parents and I was fine. I mean if I really needed something, I would go down to the school office and use their phone. any child from 0-13 is basically always going to have their parent around them if they need anything, so in that sense, it defeats that purpose. What my parents use to do when I went to a sleepover, was give me my mom's phone, so in case I needed anything, I just called my dad. using a phone for the purpose of texting their friends or using Snapchat, I think isn't a good idea especially if there 10 or younger. I think it can expose them to things that can hurt them. A dumb phone is a good idea if you want your child to be able to call you in need, but don't want them using any other apps then messages, phone or email. just my thoughts.

[Keyboardkat]

A cellphone can become an addiction. Kids as well as adults who are always on their phones simply cannot seem to interact with other people in person. They don't make eye contact. They mumble when they speak to you. And they are rude, looking at their phone when you are speaking to them , and being dismissive of those who disagree with them instead of engaging them in civil discussion. They don't learn to write or spell because there are so many abbreviations like "cuz" for "because" and "u" for "you." Everything has to be expressed in short "sound bites" or "sight bites."
In yesteryear, children were taught expository writing, how to set forth and defend an idea using facts, logic and reasoning. That's part of what is called a classical education, which also involved reading the great books of great thinkers of the past. But classical education is gone from our schools, since the major cultural changes of the 1960s and the filling of public school and university faculties with former '60s radicals, and has been replaced by "progressive education," which results in people thinking with their feelings instead of their minds, and making voting decisions, for example, based on emotions and slogans rather than logical thought. The cellphone can be a great safety device in an emergency, and it is convenient for making phone calls when no landline is available. But I have to say, on balance, the cellphone has become a decided negative for our society.

[Jjpayne]

I think if it's controlled to some extent. It can be a good way to communicate and have GPS to track where they are if need be

[Flower7]

A GPS tracker is a good idea for kids also! I hadn't even thought about that.

[Madhatter920]

I believe it's a bad thing for a child to have a cell phone. It creates an opportunity for predators to target a child, it exposes them to social media which shapes their sense of worth, it allows bullying to follow them home in their pocket, and provides them with ample opportunity to make mistakes with a camera.

However, in a culture where children widely have cell phones, denying a child a cell phone puts them at risk of bullying, social exclusion, and other problems. If everyone agreed to take phones away from their kids, that would be great, but that's not going to happen. Pandora's box is already open.

[Static_In_The_Attic]

As for us we live in a connected world & children today are growing up in that connected world & times are different. As for me like a lot of people I grew up without a cellphone & I grew up using a landline & dial up internet. I grew up in a world where everyone would call each other & where everyone would interact with on another & as I said above times are different. Children today should be connected but limited to what they are connected to.

[Flower7]

True, as long as they're only doing G-rated things with the phone, I don't really see a problem with it.

[godfatherfan]

Nope. When cell phones came out and gained popularity, my then wife and I had discussions when our boys got to middle school about the pros and cons. Of course those were flip phones and not smart phones. But the benefits still outweigh the negatives.
1) Just like computer games, they teach children a variety of things. Keeping technology from kids hurts them more then anything
2) safety. If something happens, they need to be able to call you if they need you. Doesn't matter what it is for.
3) piece of mind. Back in my childhood, when it was summer time my mom would say "get outside" . Our only rule was "be back when the street lights come on". I would be gone all day getting into all kinds of things. She had no idea where. If something happened she had no way to get a hold of me at all.

[19magic]

I had my first phone when I was six, it was dad's old one and my parents were going through some wacky shit, it's main purpose was for him to be able to reach me, or for me to reach him (one time she ran to Scotland and we live in the South, I think we were in the car like 7/8 hours). It had snake, space invaders and bench on it played those games for hours always wanting to beat my highest score. So yeah I'll get mine a Nokia and if she takes care of it an upgraded slide phone then a smart phone

[Daniela1982]

Come on! How many kids actually use the phone to contact their parents? If that is really the purpose just get a cheap flip phone at the drug store as it will serve that purpose the same as an iPhone and it will save you $900

We can take pics of the girl's locker room with this

.

[MrCommodore]

Yes its bad for kids to have normal phones with full Internet & call access, as we know paedophiles/perverts etc can find ways to get access to them and manipulate them.

Phone companies should created a range of kids phones, which can only call or be called from maybe 5-10 preset numbers. And has limited Internet access.

[humanearth]

I beleive cellphones are bad for everyone.

The amount of spying, tracking and who knows what else. A cellphone is just as bad as a microchip under your skin.

And thats why I never had a cellphone and never will.

[Flower7]

I think you're the first person I've heard say that they've never had a cell phone! Nothing wrong with that though. It seems like a reasonable decision.

[JPrez]

Yes and No. It depends on the age and maturity level of the child. I have an 18 year old and he is responsible so he has one because he knows what it is for and we have had long discussions about usage and dangers. My 11 year old will not get one, if at all, because he is the opposite of my 18 year old.

[Apple1996]

Nah its not bad. Kids now a days need some connection to the outside world considering all this covid shit is making them anti social. My 5 and 3 year old both have ipads but I'm sure here in the near future they'll be getting phones.

[Flower7]

I don't see very much difference between an ipad and a cell phone. Except of course for the calling and texting added to it. But overall, it seems like the same concept.

[Apple1996]

Yeah its basically the same. Most ipads have facetime so it could easily be used as a phone if there wifi.

[Flower7]

You had a really good point about the quarantine situation also! With kids being homeschooled, being on the internet and talking on the phone might actually be healthier for them than being so isolated from everyone.

[_no_one_]

https://thesocialdelimma.com
After watching this documentary I introspected and I felt that this was so true that I have this as my research topic for my college project now lol.
It certainly has increased the cases of suicides and self-harm in teens which is the biggest concern. So according to me even if 13-year-olds are given a cell phone then that must have parental control. Even parents should try to blend in their social life from the beginning without acting clingy of course.

[Hawner]

Yes, I do think it is bad. Too much technology at such young age takes a lot of potential learning experiences away from them.
At some point, I may give them a phone so I can be in contact with them if needed, but it would be one with a small screen where only the number you are dialing can be seen, no possibility of installing apps or games and buttons instead of touchscreen. An old-fashioned phone, basically. Serves the purpose and doesn't give more than it is needed.

[Tstrbrainer]

It's not a good idea for really small children.
For a bit grown up children, it's okay as long as parents keep an eye on the children and make sure that they get to socialize and explore the surroundings.

Also the exposure of children to radiation and strong light from phone should be controlled at least till they are 15.

[Flower7]

I hadn't thought about the radiation point. That's a really good point!

[evangeline777]

The latest iphone with unfiltered internet, yes it is bad.
A simple phone to reach each others, it can save lives.
I would give a child younger than 10 maybe a simple phone that is only for calls and texts, older than that, a simple android with filtered internet and clearly explained budget on it. Pay as you go. The child would get £5 a month on it, if they blew it, the phone is for me to call them for the rest of the month and to track their movements in case it is needed.

[Aethereal]

I think it's bad for kids to have smartphones. Unless you are their sole source of transportation to school/friends, it is best they have a means for you to reach them at all times. A simple phone that can only be used for texting and calls is enough for this purpose.

[GoodGuyBreakingBad]

I'm very optimistic about a child having a cell phone, this one Teen Mom 2 child is age 11 and she got a cell phone and my little cousins are age 7, 13 and got cell phones I believe underage kids or teens should not have a cell phone to age 16 I think having one at an early age is a very big risk but people don't see things that way?

[Korbzilla]

I'd say it's both a blessing and a curse. I myself am not a father (yet). But i often ask myself this very question. What are the pros? What are the cons?

I got my first cell (a Nokia 6610i) the year I turned 15. It was a prepaid SIM. And my parents taught me to use it responsibly. In school we were warned and schooled extensively of so called subscription traps.

And believe me. All that stuck with me. Cells and smartphones have become one of the most common tools in our society. Though i know that kids will always be kids (and that's good. It would be wrong to forbid them to act like they do.), if we teach them to use the piece of tech in their pockets responsibly and educate them about what could happen if they don't, i see nothing wrong in giving them cells or smartphones.

[Hans222]

Sometimes yes since they always chat on it... but for some things you just need it. It goes as far a buying a bus ticket.

[Flower7]

I don't get how buying a bus ticket is related. What do you mean by that?

[laraWM]

A cell phone now means permanent access to the whole internet in most cases. So, I don't really think it's a good idea if you don't set any restrictions. On the money side, I always feel weird when I see kids with a 1000$ phone