Existential Quiz: Smartphone Kids
A multiple choice question with one and only one right answer
Everyone seems concerned about how to raise our children in this new media environment of smartphones, TikTok, and whatnot. Jonathan Haidt’s new book The Anxious Generation appears to be a smash hit. You know an intellectual has “made it” when your mom buys his book (and even talks about it).
Question: How should parents approach their children’s smartphone usage?
Choose the best possible answer below:
A) Don’t give them smartphones until they’re 18 years old. Smartphones are at least as dangerous (if not more dangerous) than cigarettes. They don’t cause cancer. Or maybe they do. But, in the least, they sure do rot your brain. By 18, your children will have learned from you all they need to know about the dangers of pornography, cyberbullying, etc. By that time, they’ll be mature enough to handle smartphones and to practice temperance, perhaps the most important virtue when it comes to media use.
B) Give them smartphones at a young age (e.g., around 6 or 7) and then carefully monitor usage. Children exposed to peanuts at a young age are allegedly less likely to develop severe peanut allergies as adults. The same thing goes for smartphones. Children exposed to media at a young age are less likely to develop bad habits and media addiction as adults. As your child ages, you gradually titrate your child up to a dose of new media that he or she can handle. And then once you realize your child’s limit, you stop. Signs that your child are ingesting too much media include: decreased attention spans, decreased appetite, unwillingness to talk to others, inability to read books, etc.
C) Allow them to use smartphones in moderation, but balance out their digital diet with books, classic films, and philosophical dialogues. Hasn’t it become a commonplace that the wealthy elites of Silicon Valley send their kids to schools where they write with pencils on paper? The maxim reads: “Nothing in excess.” As with food, so with digital media.
D) Model appropriate media use for your children, including: not using smartphones at the dinner table, in the bathroom, while waiting, while driving cars, etc. Read books in front of them. Read books for them. Write books. Tell them stories that you make up on the fly. The most important predictor of a child’s media use in the future is their parents’ media use.
E) Install software on their smartphones and watch their every move. You can never be too careful. There are wonderful surveillance apps for detecting the digital movements of your young. This way they get the illusion of freedom while at the same time you get to observe their habits. It’s up to you whether you tell them there’s software on their smartphone.
F) Use fear mongering. Terrify them into not wanting to use smartphones. I mean, don’t scar them. But think about all the high school public awareness campaigns where students see pictures of mangled bodies of people who decided to drive drunk. Or their throats and lungs if they decided to smoke. You could do the same thing with smartphones. “Here’s Timothy before he got a smartphone. Happy. Just look at that smile. And then here’s Timothy two months after getting the latest iPhone.” Shock and awe.
G) Ignore the fear mongering. It doesn’t matter when you give your kids digital media. With every new development in media, the older generation is going to freak out. Baby Boomers come down pretty hard on Generation Z. But guess what? The same things Boomers say about kids and smartphones, their parents’ generation said about the dangers of TV. You mean to tell me that people being on their smartphones for a couple of hours a day is some sort of novel phenomenon? How many hours per day did people watch TV for again?
H) Don’t give them smartphones at all. Period. Ever. Get rid of your own. Buy a dumbphone. Buy your kids dumbphones. Install landlines. Imitate Captain Ludd. Smash smartphones when you see them. Smash, smash, smash.
I) The strategy depends on the kid. And no particular expert can ever know your own kid. So stop reading books written by experts that claim to know your kid better than you know your kid.
J) None of the above.
Thanks for reading, whomever you are. If you think others might find this interesting or thought-provoking, why not share it with them? And also, why not leave a comment or a question or a provocation below? If you’d like to read another existential quiz, go here.
The question of an individuals use is intriguing. If we accept that technologies are environmental then we shouldn't mistake the handheld unit for that environment. If we fetishise individual use then we doom our children to irrelevance AND deny them the services of the new situation. This is not to say that there's no scope for parental engagement on the matter of candy consumption.
H makes the most sense. Hate smartphones.