Wise phone

Our daughter, Clara, will be entering high school next year.

Alas, it will be time to get her a phone.

Not only will she need to be able to stay in better contact with friends, but she may actually need a phone at times in class.

After years of denying her this privilege (which has been exceptionally easy, both because we do what we believe is right and because Clara has never expressed much desire for a phone), it’s time to take that leap forward into technological connection.

What I discovered this weekend, however, is that phone technology has advanced considerably over the years. Limiting your child’s use of the phone turns out to be exceptionally simple, which makes me wonder why the hell more parents aren’t doing this already.

For example, it’s simple to prevent any apps from being installed on Clara’s future phone, including (and especially) social media.

There is also functionality that will allow Elysha and me to see every message that Clara sends and receives via our own phones.

Even better, and perhaps less privacy-invasive, AI-powered apps exist that monitor every bit of text inputted and received by a phone and will alert parents if something suspicious, sketchy, or otherwise nonpreferred is sent or received.

No need to relentlessly spy on your child. Allow artificial intelligence to do it for you.

We can also schedule her phone to shut off at a particular time every day, thus turning it into a brick for as long as we deem appropriate. The parents with whom I was speaking schedule their daughter’s phone to shut down at 8:00 PM every night and turn back on at 8:00 AM every morning, absent any effort on their part and thus ensuring their daughter a drama-free, technology-free beginning and end of her day.

I had no idea that all of these capabilities (and more) exist, mostly because I watch children spend hours staring at TikTok and Instagram or listening to them tell me about group chats with friends that keep them awake until well after midnight.

If the ability to monitor and limit phone usage exists, why aren’t more parents using them?

Congress is considering legislation to ban children under 13 from social media and require parental permission for children 13-17 to use social media. It would also prevent companies from using the data from children to market products and services to them.

The surgeon general has recently, belatedly advised parents to keep children off social media until the age of 13.

That strikes me as far too young. When Clara receives her phone this summer, she will not be allowed to access social media, and she will most assuredly be better for it.

But at least the legislation that Congress is considering and what the surgeon general has decreed is a start. With childhood anxiety off the charts and focus and attention plummeting, the very last thing we need to do is immerse a child into the realm of social media or allow them unfettered, unmonitored access to the internet or even their friends via their phone at all hours of the day.

Thankfully, all of the functionality required to prevent these things already exist, yet as far as I can tell, a small fraction of parents are using them.

Simply put:

What the hell?

Why are not more parents protecting their children from the excesses of the smartphone? Though I still worry about giving Clara a phone in her freshman year of high school, I feel much better about it after having learned about the controls at my fingertips.

And if those controls are still not enough for you, there is also the Wisephone, a brilliantly designed device that affords users only six functionalities:

Clock, calculator, maps, camera, texting, and phone.

No social media. No mind-numbing, time-wasting games. No apps. No access to the internet.

It sounds like something few people would ever want, yet the makers of Wisephone can’t keep up with demand. It’s perpetually out of stock as the company struggles to meet demand.

And it’s not children for whom this phone is most often being purchased. It’s adults who want freedom from the endless distraction, mindless nonsense, and unfettered access to their phones.

I’m thrilled to hear that adults are pushing back on the demands and distractions of their phones, but I wish parents would do the same for their children. As someone who spends enormous amounts of time with young people – both as a teacher and the parent of children – I witness the impacts of unmonitored, unlimited phone access on a daily basis.

It’s not good.

In the long term, I suspect that it’s going to be exceptionally bad.

This weekend, I discovered that my phone (and yours) already has the tools to protect our children from the hazards of social media, the internet, and constant connectivity.

It turns out, to my surprise, that the phone is not the biggest problem in this equation.

It’s parents.