You'll need to use a smartphone for most jobs nowadays, even just random dude in a supermarket.

Boomers haven't had them for quite a bit longer. Wouldn't say it helped much.

I don't disagree, but wouldn't it be better if society rejected that demand from capitalism and forced them to change because people aren't interested in using an app to shop in a fucking grocery store?

I still fall for it from time to time. I used to show them the headlines that caught me; they showed me the ones that caught them.

I think showing them how to use PiHole or some other content filtering would be useful. Empower them to shape their own world.

I like and understand where you're going, but I can offer some actual experience. I learned my legal first name at 8.

It didn't go down well (I cried because the teacher didn't call my name and sent me to the school office to get it sorted) and I had a weird complex about the real name into high school. There's no rhyme or reason to the two names, so it is actually sort of surprising to pair the two. To this day I still go by the nickname I thought was my real name. My nieces and nephews still enjoy discovering my real name and calling me by it thinking it's a big secret they've discovered. I still have to explain it a hundred times a year to new coworkers and acquaintances.

My kid is 3 but this has been a big issue on my mind lately. I’ve read The Anxious Generation, The Screentime Solution, and The Art of Screentime over the past 9 months (with some other tech-adjacent books). My husband has also recently had a turn-around on tech for kids. I think our big thing is no personal devices for the little one for a long time. Family computer in a common area. Family cellphone that can be used when she’s not with us. Family tv in the living room. Family iPad that is used for specific tasks.

Do you realize how hostile the outside is to non-adults? Like genuinely I've seen people call the cops because there was a kid riding a bike unsuprivized in a suburban neighborhood. Malls are dying and there's nothing to replace them as a meeting spot.

This isn't even getting into the seeming requirement to spend what feels like 100$ to see a movie now or any of the other stereotypical hang outs. Or how many people have parents that simply do not have time to drive them places.

I'm genuinely interested in your response because I genuinely think the world has become actively hostile to kids being kids.

You still have local second-run theaters where those still exist, plus parks and playgrounds where those haven't been ruined yet, and depending on where you live, there may even be various art/craft places to hang out at, splatter-painting places included in that, and some of the nicer parts of the country even have interactive museums that are kid-friendly (as in actually interactive, like the patrons can actually interact and play with the exhibits there).

Aside from those, yeah, there isn't much for kids to do. sarcasm, but also not really if you're in a *really* low-income part of the country where there really *isn't* anything to do, think of places like Appalachia for a good example of that extreme

What about onlinebanks? Also a hard no?

If I wanted to raise superhumans, I'd simply not give them smartphones until they turned 18.