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The Average Age For a Child Getting Their First Smartphone Is Now 10.3 Years (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A TechCrunch article, citing a report on Influence Central, states that the average age for a child getting their smartphone is now 10.3 years. The report adds that 64% of kids have access to the Internet via their own laptop or tablet, compared to just 42% in 2012. Also, 39% of kids get a social media account at 11.4 years, and 11% get a social media account when they were younger than 10.
Zimbabwe, right?
My son is 3 and I have another on the way. This stuff really concerns me. When I was growing up I had to work a fast food job just to afford what we call a "dumb" phone now - at age 16. My sons will have, in their pocket, full access to the breadth of the internet by the age of 10, or be social outcasts for not. What does this mean for their generation? I like to be optimistic, but it can't be good.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I will not trust my child with a private computer, digital camera, or cell phone until high school. And even then, it will be for very low values of "trust". I was young. I know what we would have done with those tools had we had them. I'm not letting my child's life get screwed up by such indiscretions.
Want photos? Excellent. Here's a camera, film, and some batteries. Remember, these will have to be developed down the street.
Want to use the computer. Fine. It's my computer. My lock down. And it's in the dining room.
Want to use a phone to call someone? Cool. Here's the land line.
*Need* a cell phone? Alright, here's one with three buttons: Mom, Dad, and Police.
Oh, you bought one yourself? Neat! It's mine now.
You hate me? I'm so very sad. No child has ever hated a parent before.
What 7 year old needs a $400+ phone? "Smart phones" in particular are huge distractions. My 16 year old has an iphone 5 and when home it's not in use (my rules) until after homework and dinner. Then it's back on the table for charging at 10pm. My 13 year old uses a little nokia candy-bar phone with a flip keyboard.
Expect "expert" opinions to bounce around on the cancer link and smartphones for years. Adults don't want to believe they have put their children at risk and don't want to give up their smartphone either.
I'm nearly 53 and I still haven't owned a smartphone.
Also, 39% of kids get a social media account at 11.4 years, and 11% get a social media account when they were younger than 10.
We are letting the personal information of children be sold for profit. This is a more certain sign of the decay of society than most that I can think of. It doesn't matter how harmless some people may think this is, the bigger problem is that most people don't think of that problem at all. They sign little Johnnie up for a facebook account so that he can see Grandma's wall, and pretty soon Johnnie's personal events are being sold to every company you can think of.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
A year or two ago I would have said I'd never buy a little a tablet or smartphone. My one year old daughter ended up at a childcare place where they use ipads, and she got an iPad. Very soon she was counting to ten with Elmo, saying "Caillou throw ball", and other things that most kids don't do until after they are two years old. Now, at 24 months old, she's about 6-9 months ahead on most of her skills. That's "only" 6-9 months, but it's also about 30% ahead.
We put effort into teaching her, of course, taking her to see her favorite things (airplanes) and talking about them, talking about whatever we see in the world around us. I have to say, though, she has definitely learned from the apps she has on her iPad during car trips and chill time. Which means I have to be mindful of WHICH apps and web sites she's looking at in the next years. She will learn something from whatever she's looking at, so I'll need to pay attention to what she's learning.
Pretty much wrecking the eyes of an entire generation.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
The issue is that a kid should be experiencing life a little bit before they learn to distract it away with a phone? I know if my kids had smartphones that would be the end of conversations in the car and at restaurants and I happen to like talking to my kids.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Moderators, please delete this comment. My seven-year old made this comment from his iPhone and has been severely reprimanded. No access until after homework and dinner tonight.
I find this sad. There must be a lot of parents out there that would do anything else then talk to their kids. Some our best family conversations are in the car, or at a table. I see kids on devices in those situations and I think, what a missed opportunity for a parent to find out about their kids day went. There are so many distractions in life that keep a parent isolated from their kids and this is one I don't need.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Children will have smart phones before conception!
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Ignore the stupid ACs, who are probably trolling anyway...
You're doing the right thing...
chore tracker
You sound like a pretty cool dad, empowering them to learn haxxoring and shit.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
My son learned to read at 3 on an iPad and my old motorola droid, my daughter is roughly in the same place. When my son walked in to the doctors office and read the sign "Laboratory Access for Technician Use Only" at the age of 4, refused to enter and the staff laughed hysterically, I decided "More good than harm". Sure, there's a million things I worry about and watch for. A lot of them I worry about in meatspace too. Parenting remains a requirement.
A lot of people on /. don't like smartphones and wish to project that on others in the form of FUD or strange old-fashioned values whose intent I do not understand.
Well that's insightful.
Perhaps you'd care to explain what, exactly, is BS. Do you not believe the statistics? If not, why not?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
As a 33 year old computer nerd, I have to ask though, if you feel you didn't need it why did you get it? Maybe you're still new to the game, but it's easy to say you don't need something when you really haven't gotten used to having something (or addicted to it). An example is a cellphone in general. Many people nowadays would feel vulnerable if they left the house without a cellphone because they are afraid if they got into an accident or there was an emergency they had no point of contact. Parents are afraid to let their kids be kids without some form of contact between them. Yet, 15 or so years ago that wasn't even an issue. The more dependent we become on newer technology, the more we feel we can't live without it (which we can).
A year or two ago I would have said I'd never buy a little a tablet or smartphone. My one year old daughter ended up at a childcare place where they use ipads, and she got an iPad. Very soon she was counting to ten with Elmo, saying "Caillou throw ball", and other things that most kids don't do until after they are two years old. Now, at 24 months old, she's about 6-9 months ahead on most of her skills. That's "only" 6-9 months, but it's also about 30% ahead.
Our kids have an iPad too, but it is locked down. Email, web browsing, the app store, are all turned off.
To even get apps to update I have to sign in and do it myself.
Nothing wrong with such a device, so long as you know how to control it.
What's the average age at which a child breaks their first smart phone? What's the average age at which a child misplaces their cell phone, to never be seen again? One of my daughter's 10 year old friends decided to take her $600 iPhone out with her to play in the snow the only day of the year it snowed in Beaverton. The phone was never seen again.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
As an ealry-onset Alzheimer's sufferer, I basically DO need a smartphone to live life. I forget appointments and miss my exit when driving without it, and I kind of like being able to google facts I can't remember. Amazon's Alexa has become my best friend as well: "Alexa, Simon says, 'Oh, you're so big!'"
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Would you like me to tell you how many phones my kids has lost and broken? If you can afford to give your kid a new phone every few months when they screw up, then more power too you. (Strangely, she's had the $600 iPhone for about 2.5 years now without breaking it. She has lost it and used Find My Phone to track it down more than once, though, Once dropped it out of her purse on the sidewalk, but apparently nobody picked it up.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
"Subjected" to Chrome OS? Honestly. I think children should be exposed to a variety of OSs and software, not living in a Windows-only or Mac-exclusive or Android-preferred or even LinuxLand home. People don't get how to understand multiple interfaces and different software and such these days.
Get the right software, and you can track every place your son goes to with a smartphone, They are unlikely to take the chrome book with them everywhere. As someone who worries when I don't know where my daughter is, I prefer she carry a smartphone. However, she also owns an iPad and a MacBook, because "both" is always a choice too.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
My kids have their own tablets. They have phones too but no sim card. (They're our old android 2.3 phones and event he kids don't use them much).
We still take them to the park to ride bikes, they do karate, my daughter does dance. Conversations in the car aren't a problem. They get motion sick reading in the car so the most they do is watch videos on long trips.
How you and the kids use the tech is up to you. You don't have to let it be their babysitter.
back in '68, I was making simple circuits from Dad's Popular Electronics. This was before breadboards so yeah, I had a soldering iron in my little fist. By the time I was 12/13 I was fixing TVs in the neighborhood (pull all the tubes, ride my bike to Thrifty, test them, buy what was needed, ride bike home, replace tubes, present receipts and get money).
The little snotnoses were in their 20s when the smartphone came out, and I don't know what the policy is on the grand-snots.
...the average age for a child to get a smartphone was 40-something. Because that's how old we all were by the time they came on the market.
Now before I'm told how horrible a parent I am, let me explain. Like anything in life or parenting, I think it's about moderation and structure. We gave our daughter one of our older Android phones when she was about 2.5 years. We were embarking on a 5 hour flight with a toddler and a baby so yes, I was looking for distractions. I gave her a locked down phone (no dialing or data connection possible) with two educational apps and one simple drawing app. We play the apps with her and monitor her play. She can also take photos. That's it. It held her interest for a while, as did a number of other activities we brought with us on the plane, but with a limited amount of distraction available she eventually grew bored. She still has access to her phone at home now and she rarely uses it. We've taken it as a backup to many outings but find we only pull it out rarely (specifically dinner at a restaurant, close to or past bedtime, aka the witching hour).
If you give a kid a phone with the entirety of the internet and app store available with no structure, sure they'll become overwhelmed or addicted. Same thing goes for most stuff we give kids as they get older (insert car analogy). But I also think it's important to have access to the tools, connectedness, and creativity that computers and smartphones can unlock. So as my kids get older and they demonstrate they are ready, I'll unlock more functionality. But if and when I do, they can expect a lesson in how to use that new functionality safely and responsibly. If they abuse it, they lose it. I think that's about the best you can do. Maybe I'll be singing a different song in 7 years.
And.. as a result society is more selfish and narcissistic then they were before. You can continue the trend if you want, it's your kids. I'm just saying society would be better if we didn't in general.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Well true, there is moderation. You don't have to be Amish. I was talking more about the parents that almost look relieved to have an addictive distraction for their kids.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
While that is true, I cannot count on a 5 year old to follow the rules, they just don't work like that. :)
And as for breaking into an iPad, unless he guesses the pin, I don't think that is possible. I'm open to hearing if that is not true.
You know what we do with our kids on long car rides? Have them look out the window and see the amazing world outside. When they get bored with that they play imagination games with each other
Here son - you might as well have this Iphone 4, your older sister has my Iphone 5 now that I have bought the latest version.
First let me say I am likely older than you. I just say that because I was born in the late 60s. I grew up on farm, obviously didn't have internet, or even cable. I spent a lot of time outside, but as soon as I could get technology, I did. My kids will never know the feeling of riding your bike in the rain for miles with a pocket full of quarters to play arcade games. And that is OK. I am not nostalgic for "the good old days", nor am I angry at "this generation of kids" the way so many other people my age seem to be. I have been involved in technology since before I could drive, and am still amazed at it.
My oldest is turning 11 in a couple of weeks, and we are giving her one of our old phones. It will mainly be for texting/calling her friends, and keeping in touch with us as she will be going to middle school next year. All three of my kids have computers (all hand-me-downs from friends/family) and tablets (lower-end pretty inexpensive ones) and they are on them quite a bit. They have had their access taken away as they have tested the rules. But nothing too bad. They play a lot of Minecraft with each other locally, they don't really go out on servers. Their main internet influences are probably from youtube and those annoying fucking videos where gamers yak their heads off and you watch them play games. I don't get it. But my parents didn't get heavy metal or computers. But that's OK. I don't need to get what my kids do. I just need to help guide them. Just because they have these things doesn't mean that they can't have OTHER things. What I will help them do is learn how to use and manage this technology, and make good choices.
My kids are smart. I know every parent may think that, but they are. I also know they are kids, and they are going to make mistakes. I know people who prevent their kids from using not only the internet, but computers. I worry about those people. There is shielding your kids from dangers, but that can be taken to the extreme and be damaging. You can't pretend that the world isn't changing. I think back when I had to do research and write papers in school. It was hard simply because information wasn't readily available. For reference, my senior year of college I wrote a paper for hardware design that was on the soon-to-be-released Pentium processor. My "research" consisted of a few magazine tech articles and comparisons with current architecture. The amount of information my kids have access to is mind-boggling. There will always be bad with the good, but I choose to focus on the good.
Look, I understand your fears for "their generation" but that happened to us, and to our parents, and their parents. You can try to avoid technology, but it's here. In just my lifetime SO much has happened especially on the technology front that I can't even fathom what my kids will face as they get into high-school, college, and beyond. All I can do is prepare them as best I can, and give them tools to be good people. Other than that - they are on their own. And they will most likely be better equipped to handle all of that than I will be.
(and if my daughter has a phone, then she will learn responsibility for it... when I was her age I didn't have responsibility for anything. And I can threaten to take it away from her! Viva la parenting)
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
In my case, the phone problem pretty much belongs to my wife. She has either lost or destroyed 5 phones so far. (Tracking software helped recover most, but they were usually in bad shape) Insurance covered 4 of them (they definitely did NOT make money off of her). Now I just get her not-so-high-end phones...cheaper than paying the insurance premiums and deductibles when she has a loss. She loses credit cards too. Yes, she isn't very aware of her surroundings sometimes. My 13 year old daughter lost her phone once (and I still think it's in the house somewhere). Luckily it was a cheap android (intentional on my part). I then got her another very cheap android telling her "This one is on me. The next one is on you". She doesn't use it much, though. Myself and my 16 year old son have yet to lose a phone. That's why he has his precious iPhone...because he's responsible. Eventually I'll upgrade my Nexus 5 (2013) but it's still serving me well right now.
Or you are and the OP are the assholes. I guess it's 50/50...
We have an entertainment system in our vehicle but our kids aren't allowed to use it unless we're having a ride that is more than a couple hours and then they are allowed to watch one movie and take a break and read. We play games otherwise as well.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Also, none of the things you mentioned is a several hundred dollar device that fits in a pocket and can get easily broken or stolen. Nor do any of those things go with them inside the school. Having this new distraction at school is the biggest problem. Teachers try to control it but it's not something that is controllable. My kids have friends that are chatting with one another in the morning before school, at school, and until 11:30 at night. We're not sure if their parents are aware how much they are on the things, or if they simply don't care.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Do you wipe down the screen after typing the pin so they can't figure out which numbers were pressed?
We have two kids, 11 and 8.
We set up a old smartphone as a "house phone". It's shared on my Ting account. We let the kids use it when they go on walks in the neighborhood. Yesterday we had to leave the 11 year old in the house for the morning so we told her to text us every hour that she was OK. She's been left alone for shorter periods so we were thought she could handle it, but she is right on the cusp of the responsibility to be home alone for a few hours. She's not old enough to be home with her sister, though.
In terms of a tablet, they both have Kindles and the older one has an iPad the school district owns. The Kindles are dirt cheap, and both kids use them to check out library books. We also use the parental controls so they don't play games all day and have unrestricted Internet access. The Kindles also replaced the portable DVD player we used to take on trips. Now for long car trips we load up their favorite movies on their kindles, unrestrict the apps and they sit in the back of the car with headphones on watching movies, playing games, reading books or listening to podcasts. For those worried about them not having time to bicker and "learn how to share", they do plenty of that at home, where they are not in a steel box hurtling down the highway at 70 MPH distracting the driver.
Set it to wipe after 10 incorrect tries, then take it away for 2 weeks after the first time they try it.
That fixed that problem. :)
Do you wipe down the screen after typing the pin so they can't figure out which numbers were pressed?
No, but it doesn't tell them the order, and having it auto-wipe after 10 wrong guesses and having each further guess take longer and longer fixes that.
That, and being 5 years old and my being lord and ruler of all things in his life, are enough for now.
I've had my 10 year old try getting past the firewall on the desktop... he lost access to the computer for a week, including homework, everything. I made it quite clear that access to the computer is a privilege and that I can remove it until he is 18 years old if he prefers to not follow my rules. His eyes went rather wide when I said that, we shall see if he tries again...
Our civilization and way of life depend on rules, even those we don't agree with. You can't rob a bank just because you think Bank of America is a crappy company or screwed us over in the 2008 GFC, we have rules about that. Likewise, you follow my rules in my house or you pay the price, and I can make that price almost as high as I care to.
When you're paying the bills, you can do as you like, until then, my house and my rules.
Keep in mind that I'm preparing him for the real world. How many kids have been killed by cops because they ran away? You can't do that, even if you don't like cops. We have rules, if a cop pulls you over or tells you to stop, you have to comply or the rest of your day will just get worse.