What age should kids get a phone(POLL)

[Guest lilbman]

I gave my kid a POS Pantech Renue as his first starter phone, and that was only because he got into after-school activities and needed a way to contact me or my wife.  He only got a smartphone (GS5) when he was 15.

 

I think it comes down to a case-by-case basis.

[SansVarnic]

21 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

No, no, no, and defienlty no. 

 

You sound just like my Dad did before my Mom convinced him that a cell phone is a necessity. 

 

Unless your our kid is driven and picked up from school he or she gets around. Meaning you don’t know where they are.

 

if that alone isn’t reason enough to at least give your kid a basic call/text phone then I don’t know what is. Because to me that just sounds like a parent who doesn’t care about their kids. 

1. You are were you say you will be, if not, there are measures of discipline that can be applied.

2. Payphones exist, used if you change location.

3. Schools have phones that are free to use.

4. If neither is available a friends phone could be used if possible.

5. Apparently I don't care about my kid since I expect accountability from my children, just like my parents didn't care about me by doing the same.  

 

[SpaceGhostC2C]

23 hours ago, JDE said:

11-12. At that age they should be able to go to school themselves and take the train, bus, etc

How is that related to phone-owning?

 

23 hours ago, KyberKylo77 said:

Thats a bit too old tbh since you would need a phone for things like studying

Studying? How does a phone have anything to do with studying?

 

17 hours ago, KyberKylo77 said:

You'd feel left out since every other kid would have their own phone 

3 hours ago, SansVarnic said:

 Feeling left out is not a good reason to have something.  

 

This. That is the silliest reason to make decision about your children. Actually, that's a wasted opportunity to teach some of the most important lessons to your children.

I'm old enough for phones not to be a thing at any relevant age, but through high school several practices became "what all the kids do", including smoking, alcohol, drugs, and dubious sexual and more general health practices. What exactly it is that "every kid does/owns" will depend on the peer group the kids land in, and as much as you may like to think otherwise, that's largely beyond your control. So, making sure your kid "blends in" with whatever it is he may be surrounded by is not a very sound policy in my opinion. Much better to make your own, thoughtful choices and stand by them, whether that puts your kids in the majority or in the minority. They need to learn to live and coexist with people in both statuses. 

 

 

[DrMacintosh]

17 minutes ago, SansVarnic said:

1. You are were you say you will be, if not, there are measures of discipline that can be applied.

You took that the wrong way. 

18 minutes ago, SansVarnic said:

2. Payphones exist, used if you change location

Not in my area. Unless you mean prepaid phones. Which is a viable substitute to a smartphone for someone who is not in High School in my opinion. 

18 minutes ago, SansVarnic said:

. If neither is available a friends phone could be used if possible.

And what happens when that isn’t around either? 

 

 

I simply think that the position of not giving your child a cellular connection to the world does harm than good and doesn’t align with the style of paranting that I belive is right.

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

How is that related to phone-owning?

Independent movement requires independent communication. 

 

1 minute ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Studying? How does a phone have anything to do with studying?

Mobile internet access. Phones can use Google in it’s full capacity. 

[MoonlightSylv]

11-12, mostly to contact their parents. Whether it's a smartphone or not depends on what the parents want to do. I got a basic keyboard phone at around 12.

[This kid builds pc]

I was 10 when I got my first phone. Came in handy like 3 times in the school year. Not really handy. Until they start doing extra shit and going out and needing to call parents then that is when they need a phone. Period.

[PlayStation 2]

A regular phone? Eventually, around the 12-13 age range.

A smartphone? They're paying for that shit themselves.

[SansVarnic]

52 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

You took that the wrong way. 

Not in my area. Unless you mean prepaid phones. Which is a viable substitute to a smartphone for someone who is not in High School in my opinion. 

And what happens when that isn’t around either? 

 

 

I simply think that the position of not giving your child a cellular connection to the world does harm than good and doesn’t align with the style of paranting that I belive is right.

51 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Independent movement requires independent communication. 

 

Mobile internet access. Phones can use Google in it’s full capacity. 

 

Very short sighted reply, tunnel vision thinking if I may say so and I am not attempting to be argumentative here.

I guarantee I can find a phone to be used within walking distance in any town the US. Store, gas station, public transit, etc.... 

You skipped the school phone option.

Like I said accountability, knowing where you will be and knowing how to be able to communicate ahead of time. Plan ahead. I remember what is was like when cell phones or mobiles first came out (I was born in '81) but they were not cheap. I always have a plan B, why? because my parent taught me to never rely on just one avenue and the Army reinforced that. My children will also learn that, something a lot of people do not learn. Why should I pay for something that at their age now and as an adolescent when they have yet reached a level of (yes I will say this) maturity and when they do get that point it will be up to them to make that choice and be responsible for it, maintaining it and so on, so forth.

 

I see zero harm in this. I see more positives, it teaches; accountability, responsibility, money management, planning, awareness, time management and more.

Google wont and cannot teach that. If your style of parenting is teach them to rely on google them well that is your choice I wont debate semantics on parenting. I can tell from a parents point of view that doesn't work.

 

But now we are going off the topic at hand so I will stop myself now before we derail this thread.

[DrMacintosh]

Just now, SansVarnic said:

 

K

[Sfekke]

23 hours ago, RyanEsau said:

I'd probably say 7-12 the kid could get a cheapo flipphone that can just make calls and texts. Namely to keep some sort of reach, so if something happens at school they can call home for example.

 

Maybe once they're a teenager and I deem them responsible/mature enough, then they can have a smartphone.

That actually is a pretty logical thing to do in my opinion.

 

19 hours ago, KyberKylo77 said:

You'd feel left out since every other kid would have their own phone and also phones arent just for games and fun, its also for researching things on the go, calling parents when you need it and having emergency contacts just in case. Imo, you should at least get a handed down phone from your parents by 13 years. Personally, My first phone was an s3 when i was 14 

You'd feel left out?They'd break your old flipphone/phone. I actually had my nokia get completely destroyed by a bunch of dumb idiots at age 12.

My parents never had smartphones my mother had an old Nokia, which to this day she is still using. My dad now has a smartphone .. but I ain't gonna see him just for that.

I take a lot of public transit and am lucky to be right in the hours all the schools close. Yay.

All I see is broken screens, kids pressing the screen so hard it shows white spots & starts acting up/etc

Best example I still remember is from 1 week ago, I see a boy get on the bus.. probably around age 12-13 max.

He pulls an iPhone X out of he's pocket connected to the Lighting -> 3.5mm jack and is listening to some music. The screen on that device is completely broken and so is the back, wow. Then after changing the song/upping the volume/or something like that he puts it away and out of he's bag he grabs another iPhone X in mint condition.

I was amazed, he's backpack was tearing/shoe's looked like he went to the cold war/and dude wash your fucking hair

But yet he seemingly had money to get an iPhone X? TWICE!?!

Look that is a typical example of a kid that should really not get those things.

I presume they are already short on € at home, considering it all. But then they buy a $ 1000 phone. Even on a contract you still pay a lot for it in Belgium. Contracts are often more here then the device, but just with payments over time.

 

 

Feeling left out is something you can fix as a kid, at first I felt like I was missing out. But then I realised nearly no one had a laptop they could call their own. Only one spoiled little brat had a custom watercooled gaming rig. The spoiled fuck.

So I actually didn't mind missing a smartphone, I mainly used my phone as a music player. Still do.

But since I started using Spotify 2 years ago I cannot use a normal phone anymore, it always just plays mp3's.

 

 

[ayeeebruh]

14 minimum, I got my first phone when i was 14 and only cause i went to school using public transit. It was a smartphone ( HTC dream)  but i currently work at a school k-12, and often see students as young as grade 4 have smartphones. It is totally unnecessary at this age, i would agree with the whole education thing, except phone are nothing but a pain in the butt in the class room. Don't get me wrong before i started working in education i was all for kids getting phones, but seeing now the issues it causes with cyber bulling and sexting, and the massive amounts of distracted kids in schools. It is better to hold off untill your kids are more mature, a simple call only phone would be fine but not a smart phone. and im 22, yet when i have a kid, he's waiting till 14. 

 

ps interesting side note,  a school board in toronto banned snapchat, netflix etc due to bandwith issues http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/tdsb-extends-snapchat-ban-1.4275511    

[mikat]

On 5-12-2017 at 5:25 AM, TrevMCC38 said:

It seems like there is a lot of debate on what age kids should get phones. I personaly feel that if they are responsible enough, they should get a hand-me-down at 9-10, and get something better at 11-12

hand me down old phone thing at 9-10, 11-13 cheap android phone (sub $200) 14+ buy your own

[mikat]

8 minutes ago, ayeeebruh said:

ps interesting side note,  a school board in toronto banned snapchat, netflix etc due to bandwith issues http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/tdsb-extends-snapchat-ban-1.4275511    

Here at my school we've had censorship for years, almost every game site is blocked, all .info urls are blocked, twitter is blocked, anything slightly related to gaming is blocked but instagram, youtube and netflix aren't.

[ayeeebruh]

Just now, mikat said:

Here at my school we've had censorship for years, almost every game site is blocked, all .info urls are blocked, twitter is blocked, anything slightly related to gaming is blocked but instagram, youtube and netflix aren't.

Oh yeah we have that too, My job is IT mangement/ sys admin, so its up to me to make sure they don't breach web filters and such. some of the ways the kids try and bypass them, its funny as hell. but we block most social media on a dns level so it keeps them at bay for the most part. Thankfully due to QOS and rate limiting at the wifi ap keeps our bandwidth under control. 

[mikat]

1 minute ago, ayeeebruh said:

Oh yeah we have that too, My job is IT mangement/ sys admin, so its up to me to make sure they don't breach web filters and such. some of the ways the kids try and bypass them, its funny as hell. but we block most social media on a dns level so it keeps them at bay for the most part. Thankfully due to QOS and rate limiting at the wifi ap keeps our bandwidth under control. 

do you guys also block all direct connections? my school does that so I can't even ssh into my google cloud vms from my phone since the google cloud console app on android doesn't work on 4g for some reason

google's ssh client on the desktop works through https so it does work there

and yes: I know about ssh tunneling and the bypassing of filters, I've used tor before to get around those pesky filters when I was younger

[Subtle Corruption]

On 12/5/2017 at 4:38 AM, JDE said:

11-12. At that age they should be able to go to school themselves and take the train, bus, etc. At least that's what we do here in Vancouver.

 

Pretty common to see 11/12 y/os going on the train themselves or walking to school themselves.

 

IMO they should be responsible enough to get at least a budget phone ($170-$230 USD)

This is not budget, Nokia 3310 or STFU till you have a job.

[ayeeebruh]

1 minute ago, mikat said:

do you guys also block all direct connections? my school does that so I can't even ssh into my google cloud vms from my phone since the google cloud console app on android doesn't work on 4g for some reason

google's ssh client on the desktop works through https so it does work there

and yes: I know about ssh tunneling and the bypassing of filters, I've used tor before to get around those pesky filters when I was younger

The student network is vlaned separately, we tunnel their traffic to a vpn provider upstream ( since we have had issues with kids torrenting and other issues on our network. ) AT the UTM level we filter dns, and have a strict whitelist filtering, where we block all connections unless it is on the whitelist. further most out bound ports for services like ssh, teamviewers ping home servers etc are block, with only 80 allowed and 443 is ssl sniffed, i.e (MITM) This plus the fact that we assiciate each students login with their student file, it keeps most of them at bay, i have had some students try to use zero days in our previous consumer aps before till we witched to an enterprise grade aps. To access and use the unfiltered vlan haha. 

[Herman Mcpootis]

IMO i'd only give my own kids a smartphone at 13-14(i'd happily delay it if they're not mature enough), but i might let them have one at 11-12 if they can prove they're ready for one. any younger and they're getting the cheapest thing i can find in the thrift store 

[mikat]

14 minutes ago, ayeeebruh said:

The student network is vlaned separately, we tunnel their traffic to a vpn provider upstream ( since we have had issues with kids torrenting and other issues on our network. ) AT the UTM level we filter dns, and have a strict whitelist filtering, where we block all connections unless it is on the whitelist. further most out bound ports for services like ssh, teamviewers ping home servers etc are block, with only 80 allowed and 443 is ssl sniffed, i.e (MITM) This plus the fact that we assiciate each students login with their student file, it keeps most of them at bay, i have had some students try to use zero days in our previous consumer aps before till we witched to an enterprise grade aps. To access and use the unfiltered vlan haha. 

soooo can you use ssh over port 80 if you set your stuff up right?

the point is: kids should just use 'unblocked games' sites to game at school

[Dujith]

If we are talking about a phone to contact me or my wife and other emergencies, i would say from 9 in my case. 

For a smart phone: whenever she saved up for one.

 

Mind you this is mainly down to me cutting cables, we do not have a phone line as mobiles replaced them. Since you cannot get an actual land line anymore (all new lines are sip from your modem) i stopped using it.

 

My oldest daughter has a phone with a sim that is tied to my main account. So she can call whatever i allow. 

[ayeeebruh]

13 minutes ago, mikat said:

soooo can you use ssh over port 80 if you set your stuff up right?

the point is: kids should just use 'unblocked games' sites to game at school

possibly yes i'll try it  out see if my utm picks it up

[RyanEsau]

47 minutes ago, ayeeebruh said:

ps interesting side note,  a school board in toronto banned snapchat, netflix etc due to bandwith issues http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/tdsb-extends-snapchat-ban-1.4275511    

Snapchat and Instagram is one thing, but Netflix? Kids trying to watch Netflix during Study Hall or something? Damn.

Them also mentioning it alleviated the stress and helped the teachers actually get faster speeds to do their stuff though... That many kids walking in and getting on Snapchat/Instagram right away?

 

Guess they're taking selfies and captioning like "Finally at school. The worst place on Earth. FML". Still seems crazy that it affected the network so much though. How actively can all the students really be sneaking selfies and what not once they get on school grounds/in class?

 

Also

It says teachers reported faster internet speeds and, as a result, were able to complete key tasks such as attendance and registration.

 

It's digitized now? I guess I can see how it's helpful but still, wow.

[samcool55]

Once they are old enough to leave alone at home when you go shopping. So if something happens to them they can call their parents or emergency line.

And they should probably get a dumbphone first so they don't start doing stupid things like sending dic pics to everyone...

[Princess Luna]

I think 13~14... before that I can not see it being beneficial.