by KATE HUNTER
I’ll put it straight out there:
I can’t see any reason for a kid under the age of 15 to have a smartphone.
Why is 15 the magic age? Because that’s when a child is old enough to have a job and pay for it herself. Smartphones are expensive time suckers that get kids (and adults) into trouble.
Children in my orbit have them – my nephew loves his iPhone, and my sister is happy to pay for it. I’ve told her my position and she’s told me to get stuffed. Sisters can do that.
I’m not Amish. I have my own iPhone to which I seem to be grafted. We have laptops and desktops and an iPad. My nearly 12 year old son has a mobile phone – a Nana-Nokia I bought at the newsagent for $19 with a nice long pre-paid SIM. He can call or text if cricket training turns into game or he’s invited home with a mate. It sits in the bottom of his schoolbag, too daggy to be used for anything other than essential communications.
Still, I realise I’m a voice in the wilderness and my son could be crippled socially, but there’s no evidence of it just yet. When it happens (my sister predicts will happen before Easter) – I plan to enforce a code of conduct similar to that of Cape Cod Mom Janell Burley Hoffman.