When should children start using smartphones and tablets without harming development?

[YourFutureEx]

I have heard stories about how exposure to smartphone hindered the development of some kids and now they cannot even communicate with real humans even though they're like 4yo.

To avoid any hindrance to development, what age do you think would be appropriate to let our kids use such devices?

1-2

3-4

5-6

7-8

9+

[BCRanger10]

This might be a little extreme, but I don't foresee my wife and I buying out kids smartphones at all. If they want one, they'll have to save for it and demonstrate that they can be disciplined and responsible. The closest thing we have to a tablet is my laptop, which has a touchscreen and can separate from the keyboard, so it can function as a tablet of sorts.

What may end up happening is when they start having groups of friends, we'll do what my parents did and buy one phone for all of them. Whoever goes out first gets the phone, whoever goes out next gets one of ours, and after that, they'll have to bum it off their friends.

But I refuse to buy smartphones and other high-tech gadgets for my kids right now. We're very fortunate that they don't ask to play with our phones, though that doesn't stop our son from grabbing one of ours when we're not looking and taking pictures or selfies...and believe it or not, he's actually quite a good photographer, even at his age 😄 Other than that, I let him use my computer every so often, but all he does is just type "spaceship" and "airplane" and stuff.

[Drumlin2001]

There are some good resources on tablets. If used for education purposes I'm not so concerned. It's youtube kids and the videos on there that's an issue for me.

[Nikki1989]

16+. Any earlier is bordering on child abuse.

[lilBigPotato]

Teenage years.

[Iron_Man]

Maybe around 16