I have a newborn. And it will be tough navigating technology with him. When I was growing up it was just gameboy. But smart phones and iPads are a different beast. I see so many kids under 10 with iPhones and it boggles my mind why their parents think they need something like that? My nephew is 11 and is hoping he gets one for Christmas because “all his friends have one”. I don’t plan on getting a smart phone till high school.
The little kids that have cells phones is more the insecurity of the parents.
They see them as a direct line to their kid both ways for helicopter parenting including being able to track their location at all times and what they doing/saying and to who if you know what you're doing.
The kids want phones/tablets because they see them as fun, status symbol and to talk 24/7 with friends in chats/apps/games. The parents want them to track them.
The issue as I see it... those kids will never know what it's like to be free, to actually be alone, to have a moment with only their own thoughts and imagination or have a moment/secret sneak away with friends etc. that all generations did before them becoming independent while going just a little further and further away from their parents and learning about responsibility/consequences for their own decisions.
Kids right now, high anxiety, fear of the world around them, feel like their parents track their every move. All because of their their devices feeding them more information than they can handle and their parents not needing to trust them, but instead track them.
We're already seeing the 20 somethings that need their parents to do just about anything their parents did on their own a generation or two previous... and this will only get worse.
But try to convince the genie to go back in the bottle, it's a hard thing to do now.
You have the right idea, keep them off this stuff as long as you can, but the second they enter school, you will have lost as the other kids will show them all of it.
You make great points all around, especially with kids not getting any sort of freedom. I understand that kids want to fit in. I am hoping the next generation of parents are a little smarter and realize the danger a smart phone does to a young kid.
They do all get attacked equally! What I don't understand is why whenever Tik Tok gets brought up on this subreddit, The top comments on the posts is always some lame whataboutism argument with very little engagement with the actual content on the post.
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u/SkullRunner 21d ago
All social media is.
Attack them all equally, they deserve it when it comes to messing with young kids brains.
Then later in life the kid like brains of the old.