[TastyJhinga]

But you don't understand the fact that this is how modern relationships work.

Internet and texting is where everything happens these days and you can't force your understanding of the world on your kids.

In this day and age, how can anyone even begin to have a relationship without being able to contact them when you want to? It is not something fancy, it's a basic necessity if you want your kid to not turn out a social pariah.

[RalfWausE]

Ahem... the last time i checked basic text messaging and voice calling still worked (and email, web based chat, irc, or even a fracking landline...

[shaunsingh0207]

Facetime however doesn't, and if I was a high schooler with a girlfriend thats likely what I'd use. That and gamepigeon "games", group chats, a fair bit of stuff thats a nonissue to older people but to high schoolers is absolutely nessecary for relationships to function

... are you really going to use email or irc in high school

[em-bee]

what can facetime do that telegram or other messaging apps that support video chat can't? as far as i can tell they are now equivalent. we are not talking about irc or email here. true alternatives to facetime do exist.

[themoonisachees]

As much as I despise Apple, they won this battle in the US. this isn't. About technology or whether or not video calls happen to exist on another platform. If for some reason GP's son was unable to create a twitter account when all his friends were on twitter, you can't just say "he can create an account on mastodon". Sure, it's technically similar but that doesn't matter because the problem is a social one and Apple has recognized that and has successfully tuned middle school kids into their sycophants by refusing to implement RCS. The fact that moving to a different messaging platform would solve this does not matter, because if these kids were willing to move platforms they wouldn't bully someone for having a green bubble to begin with.

[rwalle]

???What are you talking about? You really think Mastodon is a fair comparison? And bringing RCS here is also pointless.

To use WhatsApp/Duo/etc, all it takes is a phone number and maybe an email address (or a Google account you already have), and a few minutes of time.

If someone's girlfriend is like "I would rather just use FaceTime and call you 'by phone number', instead of spending that few minutes to set up an account for an app we can both use", I would agree with the person above -- this is too toxic.

[krackpot]

> To use WhatsApp/Duo/etc, all it takes is a phone number and maybe an email address (or a Google account you already have), and a few minutes of time.

> If someone's girlfriend is like "I would rather just use FaceTime and call you 'by phone number', instead of spending that few minutes to set up an account for an app we can both use", I would agree with the person above -- this is too toxic.

On principle, I agree the hurdle is not high to get another app/account. I even stand with you to not give in and succumb to this behavior.

The social aspect is harder. It may be easy to convince 1 person (the girlfriend) to do this, but what about her attached network of friends and all the group chats that come with? Will it be easy to convert all her friend groups and setup all the group chats to replace the existing ones?

I'm not sure anyone has that strong of a network effect unless they're at the top of the heap. In which case the girlfriend would have probably just downloaded the app and setup the account.

Even if they convinced the girlfriend and not her network of friends to get the app and new account, it would essentially still exclude and make them a "second class citizen" in that group. All it would take is not opening the app or seeing the notification or acting upon it to be relegated.

I think those not as tech friendly would want multiple 1 to 1 chat apps where there was one or very few people were on the other side. Just easier to convert people to the majority.

[em-bee]

i am sorry, i simply can not accept defeat on this issue. i do not have the financial means to buy iphones for all my kids (even old/used ones), so they will have to accept alternatives, and what matters here is to find ways to talk to the kids to understand that what they want is simply not possible in this form.

[brudgers]

There were plenty of things that he didn’t get for financial reasons.

Plenty he didn’t get for philosophical.

i simply can not accept defeat on this issue

For me doing something nice isn’t defeat, and his desire for an iPhone wasn’t an issue.

We were fortunate to be able to get him an iPhone. And fortunate he wanted an iPhone and not his own bong.

It might have worked out the same if we hadn’t. By working out I mean FaceTimeing with him now that he’s a grown ass man.

[paulcole]

Wait so is the issue financial or philosophical? If you had the financial means would you just buy iPhones for all of them if that’s what they wanted?

[shaunsingh0207]

telegram doesn't come by default on my phone. getting a teenager to download telegram or duo or <insert other platform here> is hard. The power of facetime is any kid with an iphone has the ability to immediately video call any other kid with an iphone.

I'm not saying its a good thing. I despise that its practically impossible to have a social life without an iphone in a lot of urban american schools. Just know that by not budging and not getting your kid an iphone, you are causing them frustration and potentialy making them lose out on a significant part of their childhood.

[ForestCritter]

Completely ridiculous. My kids didn't get phones until the last two years of high school. They used the home phone and their friends called them plenty. They got bullied for being white, should I have painted them black? I taught them how to deal with bullies and that the bullies were the ones with problems. Now I have three happy early 20 year olds with friends despite having no facebook (my boys didn't want one and my daughter deleted it because she didn't like it) and not always attached to their phones. My son who is interested in several subjects follows multiple discord forums and his brother follows more tech and open source stuff. My daughter simply prefers to talk to people in person. On a side note, learning to deal with frustration is part of becoming an adult. Life isn't fair, why would you teach your children to expect it to be? Instead I taught them to find balance, there's always some good with the bad.

[em-bee]

They used the home phone

the trouble is of course, today there are no home phones anymore. the last one i saw a few years ago in china. but even when our internet service came with a phone we didn't bother connecting it. sooner or later home phones will be extinct.

there are laptops and internet but then it depends which messaging services work with out a phone. telegram, signal, whatsapp, wechat all require a phone.

i suppose a shared family mobile might work for calls, but not for messaging where surely everyone should have their own account.

[em-bee]

that's not what i am responding to.

the original message was "i need an iphone" not "i need a phone".

my response specifically addresses the request for something they shouldn't need since they already had a phone (i could not find any specifics about a tracphone, but i guess it is android based)

and since this was likely not clear, by not giving my kids a regular android phone, i meant one with a manufacturer provided android. they will be getting something with a version of android customized for privacy, like /e/ or something similar.

[brudgers]

The messages were, I have a girlfriend and I want an iPhone.

They came out together ten minutes into a two hour drive and five minutes later he was asleep because I said, I will talk about it with mama.

And later that same day while he was doing his soccer things, I did on my Windows Phone. And then we all talked some more over the next few days.

Mostly about the girlfriend. Because it was awesome to see him reach that stage of his life…we were that age once.

The iPhone came eventually after a few weeks. I think it turned out a positive tool for social navigation in his circumstance.

Other kids have other circumstances. But they are not my kid for better or worse. Your kid certainly isn’t.

[em-bee]

ok, that's much less dramatic than i envisioned it. in any case i didn't intend to comment on your specific experience but to an envisioned scenario where the girlfriend is the main or only reason to want an iphone.

and it's wonderful that your son can talk to you about his girlfriend. i could not talk to my parents about that. i hope my kids will be comfortable to talk with me when the time comes.

[brudgers]

Ten years later -- late last year -- he called me about a thing with a girlfriend.

We all start with lots of theories about parenting. We end with experience and memories. Hopefully, the kind that make you miss them (it's hard to wish that your child would miss you). And we all have the option of not parenting like our parents.

The iPhone was a tool for social navigation. It replaced a flip-phone.

We got the flip-phone as a tool for the just-in-case cases. There's a lot of growth between fourth and seventh grade...the girlfriend uhm was an obvious example...anyway, a big part of that growth is peers bove into the center of a child's attention. The parents are still there, but they're not the only thing there anymore.

Just like it was for me. Maybe like it was for you...it is for a lot of people, but not everyone (I wrote that because I took what you wrote at face value).

It's easy to read things into what people write that provide an excuse to express outrage...expressing outrage is often a form of socially acceptable creativity. It's ok to say "I wrote because they wrote something outrageous."

We all need creativity, but telling someone "I write because I like to write" feels unsafe. One thing I learned from HN is to read what people wrote charitably.

But for the record, I don't give a shit whether or not buying my kid an iPhone is ok with you.

[em-bee]

It replaced a flip-phone

ok, that's a lot more reasonable than replacing a recent android phone, ignoring the iphone vs android debate.

in written communication it is a lot easier to take something personal that wasn't meant to be. it is also more difficult to make clear that something isn't personal.

my outrage in this thread is targeted at the idea that an iphone is required for youth to fit in. a point that several people here have accepted and supported. the reason to share this outrage is to gather support against this idea and to get ideas how to deal with it and how to talk to my children about it. it is good to know that there is support, but also interesting to see that this is quite controversial.

i appreciate your measured, insightful and quite personal contributions to this topic.