About 20 years ago, a generation of Australian schoolchildren became the first to get mobile phones. Some pleaded, to varying degrees of success, for their parents to buy them a Motorola Razr flip phone, ideally in pink or silver. Playing the game Snake, which involved chasing pixels around a Nokia’s tiny screen to build your tail, was a rite of passage.
Since then, the question of when to buy a child a mobile phone has become more complicated.
With ongoing debate about the negative effects smartphones can have on developing minds – from self-esteem to sleep and time spent outside – many parents are facing the question of exactly what to do for their child’s first phone. It is the subject of endless parent chatter – as well as parental overwhelm, as more options come on to the market. Is a “dumb” phone in the style of the early 2000s models the answer? Or if you get a child a smartphone, can you control how they use it? And, should you be trying to do that anyway?
In addition to smartphones and dumb phones there is an array of new phones and operating systems geared towards children (and also,in some cases, adults seeking less all-consuming devices). According to the head of mobile devices at retailer Officeworks, Stephanie Wardill, sales of “low-tech phones” have increased by 1.5 times in the last year.
What’s on the market?
The Heads Up Alliance, an advocacy group that encourages the delay of smartphones until a child is entering year nine, promotes the use of either quasi-smartphones marketed towards teenagers – such as the Opel Mobile Smartkids phone and the G-Mee smartphones – or retro-style “dumb” phones.
The retro-style phones the alliance recommends include the Nokia 3210, Opel Mobile Flip Phone 6, Kidcomms P110 and Light Phone. You can’t go on social media or the internet at all on the Opel or Kidcomms devices, while the Nokia can access the internet, but only via a simple browser.
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The Light Phone comes with some map and music playing features, but it does not display images, nor does it have a camera, internet browser or social media access. Parents can set up additional tools through a password-protected online dashboard to manage the way their child uses the Light Phone.
Many parents of younger children are opting for smartwatches instead of phones, Wardill says. As an example, she points to the Spacetalk Adventurer 2, a watch designed for children that, connected to a mobile phone plan, allows its wearer to make and receive video calls and texts. It has a GPS tracker but no access to the open internet or social media.
Wardill says Officeworks has had an “enthusiastic response” to the new HMD Fuse, an $800 Android smartphone with parental controls that hit the shelves late last month. It has most of its functions turned off by default, meaning it can function like a dumb phone that can only be used for calls and texts. Parents can link it to their Android device or iPhone during setup and can introduce features, including social media and its camera, as the child grows.
The Fuse’s unique selling point is that it claims to be pornography free. The Fuse comes with a 12-month subscription to HarmBlock+, an AI softwear that scans for nude images. After the first year, HarmBlock+ costs $27 per month.
Parents are looking for devices with built-in parental controls that allow them to limit, manage and monitor the phone’s apps as well as usage, or phones that enable additional security measures to be added or turned on, Wardill says.
Surveillance and parental controls
Some devices promise a portal through which parents can closely observe their child. For example, Pinwheel, an operating system that comes with select phones from manufacturers including Samsung and Motorola, allows parents to monitor their child’s text messages.
Experts, however, have mixed views on whether parents should be controlling how their children use their phones, let alone surveilling what they are doing on them.
Instead, they propose talking to children about safe and healthy phone use and setting clear boundaries and expectations. But there is acknowledgment that this doesn’t always work.
Prof Ian Hickie, a psychiatrist and the co-director of health and policy at the University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Centre, says the popular view has become that smartphones are “the modern equivalent of cigarettes”. But this is too simplistic, he argues, because there are both “winners and losers” on an individual level. Smartphones bring potential for social connection, especially for teenagers who feel isolated from “the world they normally interact with physically”, he says.
While parental control apps have proliferated, surveillance, says Hickie, is “not the thing to fall back on”. “The idea of sort of helicopter parents … who monitor everywhere you go, everything you do, isn’t that helpful,” he says. “You want to move into a situation where you trust your kids to be free to make decisions at appropriate ages.”
When it comes to children aged 12 to 16, Hickie says he is in the camp of parents getting a younger teen a “decent phone that can do stuff” – not necessarily a smartphone – but staying “actively involved” in its appropriate use, including “setting guidelines”: “We agree this is on. We agree that is off. We agree you’re not using that particular app or that particular feature.”
“Simple advice won’t do much. What … everyone else is doing … will be much more influential than your advice. So you’re going to need to look regularly at what they are actually doing,” he says. “My whole approach is: parents need to get really involved in this.”
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Denis Gallagher, a tech expert from the consumer group Choice, says: “The best advice would be to spend some time explaining the features, functionality and the trackability of the phone if you’re going to give it to your kid. Also discuss how they’re going to use it and maybe set up some limitations as to when they can use it and what they can use it for.”
Front-facing cameras
The Flinders University clinical psychologist and eating disorder researcher Dr Simon Wilksch says there is evidence that each year delayed of smartphone ownership is associated with a lower likelihood of psychological distress and better mental health in young adults.
Wilksch worries about many facets of children using smartphones, but he’s particularly concerned about front-facing cameras, which he says aren’t discussed as much as some other features.
“Regular mirror checking, or in this case, opening the camera, can encourage greater concern about one’s appearance,” he says. “The more importance people place on their appearance, the greater their risk of eating disorder symptoms.”
Wilksch says his children are 10 and 12, and neither has had “any sort of phone”. His advice? “Delay giving your child a smartphone for as long as possible.”
Modelling and boundaries
Dr Ariana Hoet, the executive clinical director at The Kids Mental Health Foundation in Ohio, advises parents to be honest with their children, set rules and boundaries and monitor them closely, but not behind their backs. “Technology is a part of everyday life now, so parents have to teach their children how to safely use it,” she says. “Just like we teach kids how to safely drive and follow the laws before giving them keys to a car.”
Dr Joanne Orlando, a digital wellbeing researcher from Western Sydney University, has been working on an Australia-wide study of 530 families, including in regional and remote areas, exploring the effects smartphones are having on children and teenagers. Some parents report feeling overwhelmed, while many others wonder about the best way to handle phones.
Orlando, who this month published her book, Generation Connected, drawing on the research project, says the families that stood out to her were those who approached phones with “calmness”, where adults engaged in “modelling” by talking about their own habits – “Oh, I’ve noticed I’ve been spending a bit too much time on my phone recently” – with their children.
On average, children are getting their first phone at nine and first smartphone at 11 or 12, Orlando says. “Most kids are starting high school with a smartphone … there’s an incredible amount of pressure on kids to have a phone at that point,” she says. “I don’t think parents should think: ‘they’re going into high school, I need to get them a smartphone’. Some kids just don’t care. It’s OK if your child is responsible enough, but it’s certainly not 100% needed.”
Orlando says parents “really need to be hands-on with [the] first stage of owning a phone” and then slowly take a step back and let their child be more independent. In terms of the actual device, she says it depends on the child and how ready you think they are for a smartphone. She considers a “dumb” or old model phone a “beginning stage phone”, and says a limited feature smartphone can be good, especially if your child has been “bugging you for a smartphone”.
“[But] the downside with those limited feature smartphones is your child knows it’s not a smartphone,” she says. “It’s kind of just giving them a little bit of what they want.” Orlando recommends talking to your child about working towards getting them a smartphone and having them acknowledge “we want to know you can use the phone [and] internet responsibly”.
“You’re treating them, not as an adult, but with respect,” she says. “You’re just explaining the situation. You’re not trying to trick them; you’re not trying to dumb it down. They know it’s important they use it responsibly. It’s a really good conversation.”