[lrvick]

"Smartphones are harmful" is the new "Smoking is harmful".

Smoking and football were once both pretty much required if you wanted to be popular, but time eventually revealed the interests of the cool kids often ended with lung cancer and brain damage.

Teach a kid to build computers, write software, design and solder their electronics. They will be miles ahead technically of most of their tiktok scrolling peers.

[raverbashing]

The analogy doesn't stand.

Some uses of social media can be "as harmful" as banging your head on a wall, but a smartphone is much more than that.

> They will be miles ahead technically of most of their tiktok scrolling peers.

Life is not only about technical skills. And I've had plenty of these "technically minded" people spewing complete BS about vaccines here on HN, so I guess they think they're technically minded but aren't

[lrvick]

When I say I would not give a kid a smartphone, I am saying I would not give them an iOS/Android device which is what everyone today thinks when they hear "smartphone".

They would certianly have access to a portable device with a web browser like a small form factor linux laptop or tablet.

I also don't have a problem with the concept of social media. Neutral social media and messaging services that has no profit motivated data harvesting and behavior manipulation algorithims like Mastodon, Matrix, etc, I have no problem with. I would never allow a kid to use TikTok or a Meta/Facebook product however, as doing so is literally allowing strangers to pay to manipulate my kid towards any desired behavior change. That is just lazy parenting, IMO.