How Old Can You Be To Get A Phone

Tech Fix

What'southward the Right Age for a Child to Go a Smartphone?

Teachers and students pulled out their smartphones when President Obama visited Mooresville Middle School in Mooresville, N.C., in 2013. On average, children are getting their first smartphones around age 10.

Credit... Precious stone Samad/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

July xx, 2016

Non long agone, many parents wondered at what historic period they should give their child full access to the auto keys. Nowadays, parents face a trickier question: At what age should a child ain a smartphone?

The smartphone, after all, is the key to unfettered access to the internet and the many benefits and dangers that come up with it. Only dissimilar driving a car, which is legal in some states starting at the age of 16, there is no legal guideline for a parent to determine when a child may be prepare for a smartphone.

The topic is being increasingly debated equally children go smartphones at an ever younger age. On average, children are getting their first smartphones around age 10, co-ordinate to the inquiry firm Influence Central, downward from age 12 in 2012. For some children, smartphone ownership starts even sooner — including 2nd graders equally immature equally 7, co-ordinate to internet safety experts.

"I remember that age is going to tendency even younger, because parents are getting tired of handing their smartphones to their kids," said Stacy DeBroff, chief executive of Influence Central.

The downward historic period creep is meeting resistance. James P. Steyer, chief executive of Mutual Sense Media, a nonprofit organization that reviews content and products for families, has a strict rule for his family: His children get a smartphone but when they commencement high school — after they take learned restraint and the value of face-to-face up communication.

Merely Mr. Steyer added that other parents might decide that their children are prepare sooner. "No two kids are the aforementioned, and there'due south no magic number," he said. "A kid'due south age is not as important as his or her own responsibleness or maturity level."

And so how do you lot determine the right time? To come up with some guidelines, I interviewed internet safety experts and combed through studies on smartphone use among children. I likewise asked for parents' advice on regulating smartphone utilise and keeping children safety.

The takeaway volition not please smartphone makers: The longer you wait to requite your children a smartphone, the better. Some experts said 12 was the platonic historic period, while others said 14. All agreed later on was safer because smartphones tin can be addictive distractions that backbite from schoolwork while exposing children to bug similar online bullies, child predators or sexting.

"The longer you keep Pandora's box shut, the meliorate off you are," said Jesse Weinberger, an internet safe speaker based in Ohio who gives presentations to parents, schools and law enforcement officials. "There's no connexion to the dark side without the device."

The Inquiry

Allow's commencement with some of the data. Ms. Weinberger, who wrote the smartphone and net safe book "The Boogeyman Exists: And He'due south in Your Child'due south Dorsum Pocket," said she had surveyed lxx,000 children in the last xviii months and found that, on average, sexting began in the fifth course, pornography consumption began when children turned 8, and pornography addiction began around age eleven.

In a separate study published this yr, Common Sense Media polled 1,240 parents and children and found 50 percent of the children admitted that they were addicted to their smartphones. It also found that 66 percentage of parents felt their children used mobile devices also much, and 52 percent of children agreed. Most 36 percent of parents said they argued with their children daily about device use.

There is also biology to consider. The prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain that controls impulse, finishes developing in the mid-20s. In other words, parents should not be surprised if younger children with smartphones lack impulse control.

Pros and Cons

Smartphones undoubtedly bring benefits. With the devices, children proceeds access to powerful apps, including education tools for studying, chat apps for connecting with friends and the wealth of information on the web.

Only they too are one step closer to distracting games, sexting apps and social media apps where online bullies are on the prowl. Fifty-fifty older children are not immune: Last twelvemonth, at least 100 students at a Colorado loftier schoolhouse were embroiled in a scandal that involved trading naked pictures of themselves on their mobile devices.

In the end, such cons may outweigh the pros, Ms. Weinberger said. If you lot hold off giving smartphones to children, many all the same take access to technology tools through devices similar computers and tablets, she added. The chief deviation with a smartphone is that information technology is with a child everywhere, including outside of parental supervision.

Teaching Responsibility

Ultimately, parents volition determine when their kid truly needs a smartphone. When that time comes, there are approaches for testing the waters earlier handing 1 to the child.

One popular option is to commencement the kid off with dumbed-down mobile devices, similar feature phones that tin simply ship text letters or place phone calls, and to assess whether they tin can utilise those devices responsibly.

Lynn Muscat, a parent in San Francisco, said she had considered ownership a "impaired telephone" for her 10-year-old son to proceed in bear upon while he was at summer camp. She ended up buying the LG GizmoGadget, a Verizon smartwatch that has calling and texting capabilities and a locked-down list of contacts so that her son could interact but with people she had approved.

Ms. Muscat said she did non consider buying her child a smartphone partly because she felt the device would make him a target for muggers. She also was not beholden of how smartphones had afflicted other children effectually him.

"It drives me nuts when I run into his friends on it all the time — it seems very antisocial," Ms. Muscat said. She said she planned to use the smartwatch to teach the responsibilities of using a mobile device safely before her son eventually earns the privilege of conveying a smartphone.

When you determine that it'due south time to bestow a smartphone on your kid, in that location are means to set limits. To help parents enforce rules consistently, Ms. Weinberger has published a family contract list the rules of smartphone use, which includes promises never to take nude selfies and never to try to run across strangers from the internet in existent life. Parents state what the consequences are for breaking the rules, and the child must sign the contract before receiving a smartphone.

Mr. Steyer of Mutual Sense Media said he set other limits, like no smartphones at the dinner table and no phones in the classroom. If his children interruption the rules, he takes their phones away.

Parental Controls

At that place are some phone settings that can help keep children condom when they practice become smartphones.

For iPhones, Apple tree offers a switchboard full of features that parents can enable or disable, including the ability to restrict the Safari browser from gaining access to developed content and the ability to prevent apps from using cellular data. The iPhone's parental controls alive within the Settings app in a menu labeled Restrictions.

Android phones lack like built-in parental control settings, though there are many apps in the Google Play app store that allow parents add restrictions. Ms. Weinberger highlighted the app Qustodio, which lets parents monitor their children'south text messages, disable apps at sure times of day or even shut off a smartphone remotely. While that tin be an aggressive approach to restricting a child's smartphone, Ms. Weinberger said her job every bit a parent was non to make her children similar her.

"My only job as a parent is to prepare yous for the mean solar day you leave," she said. "If that'south the case, I have to proceed you safety, and you're not going to similar some of the things I say — and that'due south O.Yard."