Have you been debating whether to get your older kid a smartphone? I’m about to share seven compelling reasons why you shouldn’t.
I got my daughter a phone for the sole purpose of being able to get in touch with her when she’s at school or sports, but the phone has spawned into an entity of its own that needs to be managed constantly.
My teen and I have a fully open dialogue about the dangers that exist online, and I have a lot of trust in her judgment. But at the end of the day, she’s too naive to know about everything lurking on the internet and how it can harm her. Teens also can’t compute why they are so addicted to the dopamine their phone provides, or conversely, why they are so depressed after scrolling their Instagram feed.
Monitoring my daughter’s phone is a part-time job and something I wish I didn’t add to my parental duties. Today’s parents are pioneering a confusing path through unknown territory and the pitfalls that abound online are a virtual minefield that kids have no idea how to traverse. If we’re not there to save them from this small but mighty device, all hell, such as the seven aspects of phone ownership listed below, can break loose.
1. Porn
While there are ways to make phones and laptops child-safe to avoid websites that contain adult content, nothing is foolproof, or should I say teen-proof. The porn industry is also working day and night to hook your kid, even embedding pop-up adult content in seemingly innocent places like YouTube videos. Just take a look at these sobering statistics from Enough Is Enough including: “26 popular children’s characters, such as Pokemon, My Little Pony and Action Man, revealed thousands of links to porn sites. 30% were hard-core. (Envisional 2000).” Additionally, teens with phones are more at risk for sexting and sending nude photos and videos, which are never deleted once they are out there.
2. TikTok
This wildly popular app seems fun and innocent enough, but it’s highly addictive, and putting it on your kid’s phone is like putting every online pedophile in the world in the palm of their hand. As reported by Family Zone, “children as young as eight were being groomed on TikTok, and young users were being bombarded by explicit messages. Experts warn that the company’s casual attitude toward cyber safety poses the biggest threat of all.” We have had personal experience with a predator creating a fake profile and posing as a hip teen to befriend and communicate with kids and even to solicit videos. Needless to say, we immediately banned the app from our daughter’s phone.
3. Instagram
Instagram is a guaranteed nosedive for your kid’s self-esteem, which may lead to depression and anxiety. Back in our day, we were none the wiser if our friends were hanging out and we weren’t invited. Now all your kid has to do is swipe a screen to see just what all their peers are doing without them. Additionally, we’ve all heard the saying, “comparison is the thief of joy.” Instagram gives users constant FOMO. As your kid scrolls through the snapshot moments of other people’s lives, they start to believe the grass is always greener on the other side and that everyone has it better than they do. Another huge issue is that even though my daughter has a private account, she still regularly receives inappropriate, disturbing DMs, which I constantly have to monitor and delete.
4. Roblox
Here’s another playground for predators. What better place to go than where you can readily chat with kids when they have a false sense of safety playing a fun game online? Right under my nose, my son “friended” 166 strangers on Roblox. I had to go in and delete them all one by one. While Roblox takes measures to limit what can be communicated in their chats, players can say things like “ABC for a dad” to then role-play as someone’s child. This opens up lines of communication that have turned disturbing quickly.
5. Phones Disturb Sleep
It’s no secret that phones disrupt sleep –– and teens desperately need sleep to regulate their mood and growth. Blue light disrupts or prohibits your ability to fall asleep, so scrolling on the phone in the evening hours is a recipe for blocking melatonin and making it harder if not impossible to fall asleep. If your child already has a phone, definitely make them check it in with you in the early evening –– don’t let them sleep with the phone in their bedroom –– even if they insist they need it as their alarm clock. Nope.
6. Phones Decrease Attention Spans & Cause Lack of Focus
Adolescents spend a disproportionate amount of time on their phones, in a world of instant gratification and snazzy graphics that the real world cannot compete with to gain their attention. This, in turn, leads to decreased attention span and the inability to focus on tasks that require more sustained attention and are considered less enticing, e.g., schoolwork. This issue is so pervasive that one study showed the “mere presence of one’s own smartphone reduces available cognitive capacity.”
7. Phones Expose Kids to a World They Aren’t Ready to Navigate
As mentioned above, phones offer users a portal to the entire world that they can place in their pocket — for better or worse. No matter how hard we try as parents, we can’t put an old head on young shoulders to increase their understanding of all the eventual outcomes of their choices when using a phone. Since my teen already has a phone, I’m trying to use it as an opportunity to teach her to navigate the virtual landscape as responsibly as possible. But if I could do it all over again, I would have opted for a flip phone.
