[bad_good_guy]

Under 18? Are you serious? You think a 15 year old doesn't deserve a single ounce of independence?

Teens should be educated on proper use of the internet, not prohibited from it without trading away their privacy to parents.

[gaius]

trading away their privacy to parents.

Right, they should totally trade it to global corporations instead. Did you think this one through?

[Nullabillity]

Ultimately neither is particularly good, but their parents have much more immediate negative potential in their lives.

[gaius]

If your mother does your laundry you have no secrets from her

[strathmeyer]

Why, what magically happens when someone turns eighteen that makes them qualified to be unsupervised?

[eeks]

My 16 years old will be pretty independent. He'll have a car and a motorbike. He'll be able to go out by himself, experience real people. He'll be able to work odd jobs, manage his own money, read whatever books and learn whatever things he wants.

But he won't have a smartphone or unsupervised internet access. Neither provide independence, but shackles to kilotons of the worst quality content humanity has ever created.

[smileysteve]

Not knowing about your 16 year old; but it will be significantly difficult to deal with the peer pressure and peer influences unless you live in a different culture.

The studied reason millenials were less likely to drive is not because cars got harder to afford or high school jobs harder to come by, but because of lack of interest (thanks to smart phones)

Even if you don't give your children a smart phone, they're going to be exposed to this behavior from their friends. And there are already articles of children who buy "burners" to keep their privacy from their parents.

[Sileni]

Owned a burner in 2006 when I realized my parents were going through my call logs. Thankfully, back then they weren't clever enough to realize they could download my text logs.

Considering a smart phone can be bought for the equivalent of a month's lunch money today, good luck to anyone trying to keep one out of a kid's hands in ~2030.

[kgwgk]

Who will supervise his internet access when he goes out by himself?

[toredash]

Ah yes, teengers with a car. That's smart.

[gaius]

Texting while driving kills more teenagers than even guns

[hoffs]

You don't need a smartphone to text and drive.

[toredash]

Source?

[gaius]

If you wish to refute me, do your own research

[gaius]

Absolutely. It’s sad the other comment that equates a smartphone with independence. Infact it is the exact opposite.