Anonymous wrote:My teen has had an iPhone since they were 11, necessitated by sports practice and travel as much as anything. They have social media, but I make them share their logins, texts, calls, and web activity with me so that I can see all activity on Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, etc. They probably have a private browsing situation, but I see most of what happens on their phone. Our deal was that you can have the iPhone, but you can’t have privacy until you are at least 16, and only if you’ve proven you’re ready for it. They are in their mid-teens now and have some friends whose parents still don’t let them have phones. Well, I’m here to tell you that many of your kids are still accessing social media accounts (I can’t tell you how, maybe they have web access somewhere, or an iPad, or even a secret phone), and they are the worst offenders with the things they DM my kid. Not just other boys, but also teen girls who are sending photos that would likely give their parents heart attacks. I'm not here with an answer because I think smartphones and social media are the most significant problems of this generation; just as a comment that withholding a smartphone from a teen isn’t the panacea that some people believe it to be.
My 12 year old has an Apple Watch for that sort of thing.
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