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Parents turn to smartwatches for their children amid global phone screen-time pushback
(www.straitstimes.com)
this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2025
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13? How many of their friends have phones because I would assume their using phones, just not one you gave them and I know from experience other parents do not do the most basic of filtering in their kids devices.
I’m pretty sure the goal behind the no phone rule is not that utilizing a phone is inherently bad, but that you’re trying to avoid building the habits and behavior that comes with having a smart phone on you, like doom scrolling, constant social media access, constant distraction etc. And in that case, the kid having some limited access to other kids phones (If they even do. Who among any of us just lets someone else use our phone unrestricted) isn’t going to undermine that effort.
The raise your child to use a device appropriately. Waiting until they are a teenager is far too late to form the appropriate habits around self limiting screen time.
I get that no one wants to blame the device but this is clearly a parenting issue and I say this as someone who has on average raised far more children than anyone in my generation.
But go ahead and lean into the articles that blame on the evil algorithms and the evil corporations. Personal and parental responsibility is hard anx blaming outside influences is easy.
Raise your children or someone else will do it for you.
I am a living breathing example of a kid who got a phone at 17, I had a bit of a honeymoon period with it, had lots of fun and distraction, but eventually got used to it and actually use it for organising my schoolwork to do list, check the weather and my daily schedule.
I do tend to use social media on it, but only on the bus, since that's usually when I don't have anything else to do. I self limit my screen time pretty well, usually only 30 mins to an hour total per day, and I've always had all my devices without parental control systems, since my parents never knew how to set them up.
Also, you saying it's never about algorithms designed to siphon your attention is inherently incorrect of a statement. They literally have hundreds of data metrics to effectively lock you into staring at the screen mindlessly, although parenting also has a part to play, since you also should teach your child on how to control their attention and harness it to actually do something fulfilling, though many parents don't know how to.