Thinking of getting your kid a phone this school year?
Read this first.
It’s back-to-school season here in the States, which means a whole new crop of kids—roughly in the ranges of 8 to 14 years old—are going to start walking to school and going to practices and rehearsals on their own. This also means that a whole new crop of parents—flooded with the anxiety that comes whenever their former babies are out of their sight—are going to start wondering whether they should get their kids phones. You know, to coordinate logistics and keep them safe and communicate in emergencies and (insert list of potential anxiety- and logistical-driven reasons one might buy a child a phone).
And kids, for their part, are probably going to be pushing for that phone to be a smartphone.
And parents might be considering saying yes, in part because they don’t realize that there are other options available.
My friends: there are other options! Devices exist that can help you provide your children with more independence, make logistics easier, and temper your anxiety.
What’s more, these devices are cheaper than iPhones and less addicting and less distracting and don’t give your child access to social media or the nefarious corners of the internet.
I’m talking about smartphone alternatives.
As I’ve written about before, there are a growing number of devices on the market that are not full-fledged smartphones, but that provide varying levels of features and protections — you can think of them as being like “training wheels for the internet.”
There’s a whole range of options, from phones and watches with extremely limited functionality to phones that actually look like smartphones (helpful for older kids), but whose operating systems don’t provide access to the internet or social media. Some also offer additional useful guardrails — for example, the ability to monitor your child’s contacts, text messages and phone calls, and/or restrict (or enable) their ability to send photos along with their messages.
Note that all of these options require a bit more work to set up than say, an iPhone, which is deliberately designed to be as friction-less as possible—but in my opinion, their extra features and protections make it worth it.
Read My Choose-Your Own Adventure Guide to Smartphone Alternatives
Last winter, I spent an obscene amount of time putting together a detailed guide to these smartphone alternatives—which I’ve just updated with information on the Garmin Bounce and the Apple Watch. I thought it would be useful to share it with you at the beginning of the school year.
You can read my free, condensed version of the report here. (The round-up took a ton of work, which is why the full thing is behind a paywall — but I also wanted to be sure to provide some resources for free subscribers.)
For the full report, please become a paid subscriber and then visit that same link. (Substack will “unlock” the content for you.) As a paid subscriber bonus, I’m also including my Apple Watch thoughts below, since a bunch of people have asked me about the Apple Watch recently. :)
To scrolling less, living more, and delaying smartphones for as long as possible,
PS: I’ll be sharing more practical tips about how to create better back-to-school screen time boundaries and routines via Instagram, so if you haven’t already, please consider following me there. (But then immediately log out afterwards! I’m trying my best to use social media for good and do not want you to get sucked in!)