What Do Kids Really Use Their Phones For?
By Movieguide® Contributor
What does your child really do with their cell phone? The answer might surprise you.
According to Stanford Medicine, the average age a child gets their first phone is between 10 to 12 years old.
“We found that whether or not the children in the study had a mobile phone, and when they had their first mobile phone, did not seem to have meaningful links to their well-being and adjustment outcomes,” said Xiaoran Sun, PhD, a former postdoctoral scholar at Stanford Medicine and Stanford Data Science.
READ MORE: DON’T GIVE YOUR KIDS PHONES BEFORE HIGH SCHOOL — HERE’S WHY
However, researcher Eneko Tejada believes “this is an important age to investigate because, although their digital culture has begun to take shape earlier, this is when they start to have their own mobile phones and when the biggest change occurs.”
“Gifting a smartphone has become a rite of passage into a new phase. In a way, it represents the leap to adolescence, as they are given the key to use social media and, with it, the entry into a parallel world,” Tejada added. “This is of particular concern to families and a technophobic point of view has also spread. So we wanted to explore what the situation really is.”
But in reality, most kids ages 11 to 12 primarily use their smartphones to talk to family and friends. However, while they’re used mainly for communication, giving an adolescent a smartphone opens the door to them asking for social media, which parents often feel pressured to allow so they don’t feel left out.
However, the Child Mind Institute advises holding off. “…delaying social media immersion helps [e]nsure that they will be more mature about what they post, more able to resist its addictive appeal, and less vulnerable to emotional harm,” the group explained.
“Owning a smartphone means starting to use social media directly,” Tejada added. “Parents gift their children a mobile phone to communicate with them, to know where they are, etc. But they need to realize that offering a mobile phone makes it easier for them to make the leap to social media, as they will not be using their phones exclusively to talk to family.”
READ MORE: IS SOCIAL MEDIA REALLY CAUSING THE YOUTH MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS?
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