When Is The Right Time To Give your Child a Smartphone?

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Ever since Apple brought out the iPhone parents have been struggling with what the rules are for their children before giving them such a device. Many liken it to a teen’s first car. The opportunity for good, and for mischief, is almost unimaginable. On the one hand it can connect children with vast libraries of useful information — on the other hand it can introduce them to some of the vilest practices that stain the pages of human history. And pretty much every parents agrees that an iPhone eats up an enormous amount of a young person’s time.

By the year 2015 nearly seventy five percent of all American teens had access to a smartphone of one kind or another. And the social media giants like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, are bent on making their venues so appealing that young people will never want to sign off of them.

That’s because every social media site is driven by viewership numbers and the time viewers spend watching their venue, which translate directly into advertising revenue.

So when is the right time to introduce a child to the world of smartphones and other connecting media?

The answer, according to most experts, is — it depends.

A child with a chronic health problem, for instance, may need a smartphone or some other contact device by the time they are in grade school — so they can contact a parent when there is a health emergency and parents can know some peace of mind by being able to stay in contact with their child.

On the other hand, a child who has not shown much discretion or judgement in their interactions with others may be a good candidate for a delayed introduction to their own smartphone.

But at some point almost every parent in America is going to want their child to have access to a smartphone for their convenience, protection, and learning. And children who observe their own parents or siblings abusing social media sites are much less likely to become responsible internet users.

This is where safety apps come in. Technology is going to be a growing part of your family’s life. It will help you manage that new digital presence as it becomes your child’s companion. Apps monitor their location, the information they are sharing and the information that is coming in, while giving you a daily and weekly report. It is another pair of eyes and ears, supplementing the concern that every parent already feels for their children.

Honestly, most parents and child caregivers are not standing idly by, letting the big social media companies have their own way. Google stockholders are pressuring the company to put more stringent filters and barriers on their search engines to block inappropriate searches by children. Facebook recently changed the way they accept content, going back to hands on observation to weed out hate sites and pornography, instead of relying on algorithms to police their offerings. Twitter is looking to set up a parallel venue for children, where all inappropriate tweets, especially bullying texts, will be completely banned.

American lawmakers are growing more and more interested in passing legislation that would require all smartphones to have GPS tracking devices installed that parents can access immediately, and even timers that will limit the amount of time a child can actually use their iphone during the day before it automatically shuts down.

The bottom line for parents is that they must strive to know and trust their own children and then let them have access to smartphones. Kids without such access feel acutely conscious of being left out of their social circles and can become withdrawn and deeply depressed.

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