Since adults spend much of their waking hours staring at smartphones, it’s no surprise that one of the biggest questions modern-day parents face is when to get one for their kids. How can they weigh the benefits of waiting with the strain of their children missing out on social connection?
Chris Stegh, Chief Technology Officer for the E-Group joined Rob Hart on the WBBM Noon Business Hour this week to discuss the dilemma.
“I think the obvious answer is the later, the better,” said Stegh. “But kids need communications for various reasons at various ages. So, I want to just posit a position here and say that it’s really not the phone itself. It’s the apps that they use on the phone.”
Those apps are something kids are introduced to way before the smartphone question creeps up, he added. Kids often learn about them on iPads and other tablet devices. According to a report published last year by Common Sense Media, 40% of children under age 2 already had their own tablet device and by age 4, more than half (58%) had one.
While some parents consider waiting until their children are at east 12 years old to make the jump to a smartphone (allowing them to call and text friends), that same report showed that one in four kids had their own cellphone by age 8.
“I think you could try to give your kid a flip phone and just give them emergency calling and texting, but that's probably not gonna be cool to carry around,” said Stegh. “So, I think the focus should be on what the kids do with the device once you give it to them. And that’s all about the apps.”
He said that parents could use the eventual smartphone gift as an opportunity to go have a fresh conversation about apps and app safety with their children. There are also controls that parents can utilize address how their children are using tech.
“Apple and Google both have screen time apps. They have apps that force a parental approval to allow the child to install an app. They have downtime features and forcing them to take their eyes off the screens,” explained Stegh. Those features are free, he added.
If parents are concerned about their kids’ phone usage beyond what those controls can provide, there are also controls offered by phone carriers like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. Stegh said there are even more controls offered through third party apps, including some that will alert parents about concerning activity.
Safety concerns are one thing, but Hart noted that simply has been identified as a problem for young people. Last year, a study from researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) in collaboration with researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and Columbia University in New York, found that “owning a smartphone in early adolescence is associated with increased risks of depression, obesity and insufficient sleep compared to not owning a smartphone.”
“The big thing to watch is the notifications that children get from things like Snapchat,” said Stegh when Hart asked him what the biggest time suck for kids using smartphones is. “Those can be incessant and they’re always keeping your kids looking at the phone instead of at their homework or at something more substantial in life.”
So, in addition to keeping an eye on apps, he recommends managing notification controls to calm down the constant flood of demands from smartphones. If kids pick up phones less, then they are less likely to start scrolling – and we all know how hard that can be to stop. Some younger tech users are also getting into retro tech that removes those notifications altogether.
