[abeyer]

Yup, came to say this.

Kids have learned to walk places on their own without maps or satnav or tracking for hundreds of thousands of years. I believe everyone would benefit from that continuing. We don't teach kids that the only way to do arithmetic is with a calculator... they learn first, then get a tool that can support what they already know. Why do we think we should do it differently here, and train this learned helplessness without a phone glued to your hand. I suspect a lot of this is projection of the parents' own discomfort with being away from their phone.

[philips]

As I parent I am downvoting this because I am quite tired of others judging parents and their technology choices- particularly when it comes to restrictions.

Parenting is hard. Parenting when everything is changing so quickly is very difficult.

[abeyer]

My 2c is that I'm not judging the parents, I'm judging the outputs I've seen of people raised on phones...and that's something that impacts everyone in our society. If you think you can do better, I guess go for it, but I haven't seen it

Parenting is also a strictly optional hard-mode that you choose to switch on knowing full well there's an 18 year cooldown before you can switch it off again.

[eigencoder]

Yeah, but your kid can also walk to school without a map, it's not a big deal.

[littlecranky67]

Way I see it, most parents give their kids early access to phones just to keep them sedated and occupied. There is zero benefit for under 14yo to have unrestricted access to the smartphone or internet. It only benefits the parents.

[floren]

It's so damn easy to hit "pause" on the kid by turning on the TV or handing over a phone, but the result is so apparent: demands for more phone or more TV.