Should kids have smartphones?

[Dildo Argentino]

Here's Louis CK with a very funny and at least halfway cogent argument saying they shouldn't.

http://teamcoco.com/video/louis-ck-springsteen-cell-phone

That puts me in a difficult position: as the most important principle of parenting in my life is that people should never coerce others, not even kids, just because they feel they know what's best for them better than they themselves do (they may or may not be right, but it's still not justified grounds for coercion), the (many) kids around this household quite freely help themselves to computing equipment. The 10, the 11, the 13, the 16 and of course the 18-year-old all have their own (shoddy but workable) computers (though the 11-year-old girl's one has been broken for a while and she doesn't seem fussed) - and yet they make eye-contact and are interested in a number of things other than computers (admittedly, at times the number is somewhat smaller thant I'd be really happy with).

I am also failing to find a piece by Charlie Stross about a new kind of person: one who never has to be lost or alone against their will. But he did make that point: what happens when most people are like that? Charlie thinks, and I think I'm with him, that it's not the end of the world, may even be the beginning of tomorrow. What do you think?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I think kids having smartphones is a damn good idea.  In my observation of my kids, they are more socialized with their peers, and they never get lost.  More communication is better.

The only counter-arguments I have seen are mostly crusty fuckers about my age that are convinced that everything new is bad, and that kids are all going to the dogs, and they should be playing with broken glass and chunks of concrete like we did.

Fuck that noise.  There is no reason kids should have to live in the Goddamn dark ages just because a previous generation has

1.  Some Luddite-esque fear of anything new, and

2.  Some weird nostalgia for what was, comparitively speaking, a really miserable time in history.

[Suu]

I think kids having smartphones is a damn good idea.  In my observation of my kids, they are more socialized with their peers, and they never get lost.  More communication is better.

The only counter-arguments I have seen are mostly crusty fuckers about my age that are convinced that everything new is bad, and that kids are all going to the dogs, and they should be playing with broken glass and chunks of concrete like we did.

Fuck that noise.  There is no reason kids should have to live in the Goddamn dark ages just because a previous generation has

1.  Some Luddite-esque fear of anything new, and

2.  Some weird nostalgia for what was, comparitively speaking, a really miserable time in history.

Bolded for troof.

They do, however, need to be taught proper manners and actual social skills as some point though. They are a valuable tool, but also a bad distraction. I see nothing wrong with teachers making the kids lock them up during class time, OR, finding a way to integrate it to better modern learning needs.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I think kids having smartphones is a damn good idea.  In my observation of my kids, they are more socialized with their peers, and they never get lost.  More communication is better.

The only counter-arguments I have seen are mostly crusty fuckers about my age that are convinced that everything new is bad, and that kids are all going to the dogs, and they should be playing with broken glass and chunks of concrete like we did.

Fuck that noise.  There is no reason kids should have to live in the Goddamn dark ages just because a previous generation has

1.  Some Luddite-esque fear of anything new, and

2.  Some weird nostalgia for what was, comparitively speaking, a really miserable time in history.

Bolded for troof.

They do, however, need to be taught proper manners and actual social skills as some point though. They are a valuable tool, but also a bad distraction. I see nothing wrong with teachers making the kids lock them up during class time, OR, finding a way to integrate it to better modern learning needs.

I fail to see how one precludes the other.

Also, by the same token, older people should be learning the manners that apply to new technology (for example, NOT POSTING IN ALL CAPS WHEN THEY TEXT OR POST ON FACEBOOK).

Times change, and manners change (slightly) with those times.

[Suu]

I suppose you're right, you can harp and howl all you want about students not touching technology during class time, chances are they're going to do it anyway. So either you lock it up, or, you find a way to integrate it, which could really not work in either case. I mean, if you force a student to not carry a phone to school, or lock it up in a desk during class time, are you really doing them a favor? Or are you doing them, and yourself a disservice for being what could be perceived as a bullying teacher? Sounds very paradox-y.

[AFK]

Bad idea.  It is another avenue for unsupervised and unmonitored access to the internet.  Especially given all of the Agrippa's that use the internet.

[Reginald Ret]

Bad idea.  It is another avenue for unsupervised and unmonitored access to the internet.  Especially given all of the Agrippa's that use the internet.

Agreed. We can't have the youth getting A grippa.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Bad idea.  It is another avenue for unsupervised and unmonitored access to the internet.  Especially given all of the Agrippa's that use the internet.

ROCKS AND BROKEN GLASS.  THAT'S ALL THEY NEED.

[Dildo Argentino]

Okay, I take your point, and generally agree. But did you actually watch the video? Louis is no old crusty. The most cogent bit of his argument starts at 1:25, and firstly, he is claiming that if you communicate a great deal in text, you don't get the sort of emotional feedback to your experiments of meanness (and, I should add, any other kind of emotionally loaded communication) that you, as monkey, need, to calibrate your actions. I do believe this may have something to do with the somehow utterly mindless and absurd instances of cyber-bullying we get to hear about. The availability of online bullying makes it easier to become a bully. Secondly, and I think this is even more thought-worthy, starting at 1:52: "you need to develop the ability to just be yourself and not be doing something - this is what the phones are taking away - that's being a person". And I do think the phones take that away. I think that may be a good thing. But there is a listlessness, I am tempted to say shallowness (though I may well be unfair) in the young kids I meet who have gotten completely habituated to the constant availability of unlimited quality stimulation. I was not raised in that way. After desiring a book, I frequently had to wait days, nay, weeks, before I could get it. Same with music, with films. There is clearly an element of deprivation there, and if that goes away, hurray. But is there something else there, too, perhaps?

Something that was built into our generation and is not built into this new one? And exactly how does that make them different? It's as if the age of scarcity has already ended in some domains: in countries where reasonably high bandwidth internet has become a utility available in most homes, you can be quite poor in many respects (food, travel, equipment) - but have a 100-dollar computer and have the worlds intellectual riches at your feet. When do you give kids smartphones? My three-year-old is already demanding one.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Can't watch the video til I get home (it's blocked).

[Pæs]

Louis C.K. Hates Cell Phones

Hahaha I love how old people project themselves into kids. That cell phone obsession thing is totally a technology immigrant thing, kids who are raised with cell phones aren't obsessed like that.

This thing keeps making the rounds. It got a whole isolated post on Naked Capitalism, FFS. I'm pretty sure I don't give a fuck about what that guy thinks about anything.

Plus, I refuse to see those things as anything less than, as Warren Ellis put it, god damned wizardry at our fingertips.

It's basically exactly the same as all old people projecting on and railing against young people ever through all time.

If old people would just embrace that they are getting old and falling apart and decaying and their mental acuity and physical senses are starting to go, making the world seem confusing and hostile, instead of trying to insist that it's really that young people suck, everybody would get along much better.

I liked that bit -- I don't think that Louis is really talking about kids. But he makes a good point about how distracting these pervasive technologies are. They have a way of hijacking our internal monologues. We use them to fill in the in-between moments moments, but sometimes it's worth spending some time there.

Right after Obama was inaugurated, I remember some reporter asking him if he had any advice for people. He said he recommended taking a little time each day to just sit and be by yourself and not be distracted by anything. Let your phone sit, don't work on anything, just take a few minutes every day to think about things. Louis gets a bit dramatic about it, but I think that's the guts of what he's saying.

I also agree with his rant about how kids should learn to be social animals through face to face interactions. It's so much easier to be irresponsible when you don't have to look somebody in the face.

If he's talking about adults, then he's right. Adults, especially older adults but really anyone who didn't grow up with these technologies, are so hopelessly enthralled by them and by their ability to check for IMPORTANT INCOMING MESSAGES that they do it constantly.

Kids, on the other hand, are as likely as not to leave their phone at home or let the batteries go dead, a scenario that would send adults into a frenzy of panic. Kids also don't have this thing where they HAVE TO CHECK THEIR EMAIL seventeen times a day. They treat it like we treat mail... they check once a day, call it good. Whatever's in there will wait, no need to be INSTANTLY AVAILABLE for everyone's whims.

As for being mean electronically... yes, kids do that. So do adults. Kids also have no problem doing it face to face. What I have seen with kids is that if they are going to develop empathy for others, they do so regardless of whether they are interacting electronically, and are LESS likely than adults to pull that "just pixels on a screen" bullshit, because they grew up using these media to communicate.

XPOST: http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php/topic,32818.300.html

[Trivial]

My kids won't have smartphones until I have one.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Thanks Paes! That was pretty much all I have to say about it.

Although I will add that if you're an involved parent you don't HAVE to constantly monitor your childrens' internet use. The goal is to  teach them how to function independently; you are trying to raise adults. The age at which any given child is mature enough to manage that varies; with my oldest, she really wasn't responsible enough to have any phone at all until she was 13. My youngest was ready at 9, Smartphone and everything.

[Salty]

Depending on the kind you get it's also fairly easy to check. Iphones are built with very effective parental controls. If they can get passed them you should probably take your kid out to celebrate their mental prowess.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Bad idea.  It is another avenue for unsupervised and unmonitored access to the internet.  Especially given all of the Agrippa's that use the internet.

Our responsibility as the older generation to teach them to be able to use this technology unsupervised. If they don't it's our failure, as parents. It's basically the same as the time I got a bus pass from school and was given free rein, and didn't get into any trouble. My parents may have screwed up in some areas (whose doesn't?), but they at least taught me to not get myself in a bad spot if they weren't looking.


Holist, kudos. I understand your ambivalence, but this is a good thread.