Call me old-fashioned, but I think kids should receive an iPhone 15 pro and a bottle of Jack Daniels on their 10th birthday. In fact, Apple is coming out with a special Mark Zuckerberg commemorative edition phone with a titanium-etched likeness of Kim Kardashian's tuchus on the back.
Smartwatches Keep Phone-Begging Kids at Bay, but There Are Downsides
For the under-13 crowd, a smartphone remains the most coveted tech
Evelyn Chan, 13, has an Apple Watch and often feels left out among friends who have phones. KATHERINE CHAN
By Julie Jargon
Oct. 14, 2023 9:00 am ET
Parents holding out on giving their kids a smartphone are getting them smartwatches instead.
They say the latest watches, which can make and receive calls and texts, solve their main communication problems—keeping in touch in case they’re late for a pickup or a kid’s practice runs long. In some cases, it even puts an end to kids’ pleading for a phone.
These parents are becoming a rare breed as more kids get phones at younger ages. About half the kids in the U.S. get their first smartphone by age 11, according to Common Sense Media. Nearly half of kids ages 8 to 12 already have one. By comparison, only 37% of teens had smartphones a decade ago, says Pew Research Center, and it didn’t even track phone use among kids under 12 back then.
Still, more than 50,000 parents across the country have signed a pledge to wait until at least eighth grade to give their child a phone. Ample research has shown that the longer kids wait to have phones and social media, the better off they are. On the other hand, kids can feel isolated when they can’t take part in social apps and group chats, where teens make plans.
While the Apple AAPL -1.03%decrease; red down pointing triangle Watch can be considered a schoolyard status symbol in its own right, it’s still not the same as having an iPhone. The watch option is inherently a compromise, but in some families, it does the trick.
‘Like I’m missing something’
“When I’m with my friends, I feel like I’m missing something,” says Evelyn Chan, a seventh-grader who has an Apple Watch, but not an iPhone. “When they talk about what they see on social media, I have no idea what’s going on.”
It’s also hard for the 13-year-old to keep up with softball-practice updates and school assignments because she can’t access the apps her team and classmates use until she gets home and checks her iPad.
Katherine Chan, center rear, says the age at which she and her husband, Mike, in hat, allow Evelyn to have a phone will set a precedent for when Evelyn's younger brothers Theo and William, front, will expect one.
KATHERINE CHAN; KATIE D'AMICO
Her mom, Katherine Chan, who works in the pharmaceutical industry in Sunnyvale, Calif., says the benefits outweigh the inconveniences. Evelyn had gotten a Gizmo watch when she was 11 but couldn’t easily text her friends with it. Her parents got her the Apple Watch when she turned 12. The Chans haven’t yet decided when they’ll get Evelyn a phone and say their choice will set a precedent for her younger brothers, ages 11 and 4.
Katherine notices that when the girls on Evelyn’s softball team have downtime during practice, they spend it scrolling on their phones. “I don’t like that dynamic,” she says. “I like for people who are near each other to interact with each other. I hope that by delaying the phone she’s learning some lessons from observing others before becoming engrossed in it herself.”
‘A wonderful alternative’
When U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory in May about the effects of social media on adolescent mental health, he cited studies showing that kids are more susceptible to peer pressure and comparison during early adolescence. Bullying, drama and exclusion also happen in group chats, which are hard, if not impossible, to keep up with on a watch.
Alan Reid’s research on kids and tech informed his decision to wait until 16 to let his kids have phones. His daughter Stella, 14, has an Apple Watch. PHOTO: PHOENIX REID
Alan Reid, an adjunct faculty member at Johns Hopkins University, has been researching the effects of technology on kids for nearly a decade and has taught courses and written a book on the topic. That’s why he and his wife, Alison, decided their four kids shouldn’t have phones until they’re 16. Their oldest child, Stella, is a 14-year-old high-school freshman with an Apple Watch.
Stella says she agrees it’s the right decision because she avoids the drama that happens online. She also spends a lot of time outdoors in Kure Beach, N.C. But she says it’s hard being the only teen in her friend group without a phone.
“I feel left out,” she says. “At lunch everyone’s on their phones, and I’m just sitting there, trying to look occupied.”
Alan admits 14 is probably a reasonable age to have a phone, but he and his wife are trying to stick to 16 because they feel two extra years of cognitive development will better equip Stella to handle all that comes with having a phone.
“The watch has been a wonderful alternative in the meantime,” he says. “It allows us to communicate but it doesn’t foster that dependency or suck her in like a phone would.” Stella says she likes the watch.
‘I’m surviving’
Mari de Vere White, 13, got a phone this summer, before starting eighth grade. Her parents had been planning to hold off until high school, but she says she convinced them that she had been responsible with the Apple Watch she’d gotten in seventh grade, and her parents relented.
After a week of having the phone, she says, “I didn’t remember what it was like without one.”
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The Sacramento, Calif., teen hasn’t disappeared into her phone, though. I asked her to check her latest Screen Time report, which showed an average daily time of 2 hours and 37 minutes. That’s hardly anything when you consider that about 20% of teens say they’re on YouTube almost constantly.
Twelve-year-old twins Geli and Noli Vassilakis of San Diego still don’t know when they’ll get phones. The seventh-graders each have T-Mobile SyncUP watches. Geli desperately wants a phone so she can text her friends in group chats. She and her brother both say they miss out on plans to get together with friends because they don’t have phones.
Still, Noli says it isn’t the end of the world: “I’m surviving.”
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Write to Julie Jargon at Julie.Jargon@wsj.com
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