That kid is gonna get bullied in school.

Source: I was that kid, I didn't have a phone for most of High School (which was around the time when smartphones became popular), so I didn't get into groupchats so I basically had no friends for most of highschool. Fun times 🫠

(I mean this "no-smartphone" thing has to be a collective thing across society, you can't expect this to work if only one parents does this.)

yeah, at the very least a collective thing in a classroom

This is starting to veer into technophobia territory.

I never gave any of my adult daughters cell phones and I don't plan on giving them to my daughters in grade school either.

Hard pass on my daughters getting dick pics and hanging with the popular kids

When they are old enough to get a job and earn enough to buy one that will be fine with me.

I miss POTS. Copper landlines are a thing of the past. Now it’s just VoIP with a battery that doesn’t last long enough and another bill. (And place for scam/telemarketers/junk calls)

Your just shit parent. I gave all my teen sons Smartphones and at the same time parented my kids and kept track of what they were doing with them. I still pay for 2 of my kids phones. I love it I can track where they are at, and call and text them when I need to. Dumb take "they can pay for them" bet you still be all up in arms of what did on there even if they paid for them. You are going turn you daughters in to unknowlegable and vurable women who will have hard time later in life. All on you trying protect them. Just fucking educate them on the dangers. World scary place deal with it and make sure they are prepared for it.

Who is this person and why should we care about their opinions on this? Not intending this in a mean way, just if theyre like a behaviour scientist It would change how I read the article.

Artificially restricting your child from having a phone only makes them less prepared for the world. Think of all the kids who grew up without a computer and now they have no idea how they work and can't do basic tasks.

The middleground is a phone locked down with parental controls.

In some areas you can no longer get a landline. I was discussing this with someone who lives rural and the phone company will not serve any of the addresses outside of towns.

That's strange to me as I still have a POTS line and have never been without one through my different abodes. I will say that only a few calls come in on it, but I use it for outbound calls quite often. Almost all of the spam calls come in on the cellphone now.

I remember reading about the last hand-crank phone being removed (As an aside, my memory had this happening 20 years ago. Lol, it was 35!):

Remote Idaho town retires last crank call - UPI Archives

High-tech has finally reached the tiny mountain town of Shoup, where digital telephone service has ended what was believed to be the last magneto...

UPI (www.upi.com)

"Smith said with hand-cranked telephones, 'sometimes the connection cracks up and you only hear every third word.'"

Hey, just like my cell service!

lol. Or grow a pair and tell your kids "No" once in a while.

Lol, your kids got all fucked up and you don't even know it. Generation mentally fucked with by tech bros, but you watched them so it is okay!? Stupid as fuck.

I have met some dumb fuckers in my life, but you take the cake. How many dick pics did they send, nevermind you didn't even know they did.

My daughters are not tech literate, they used to help me build computers. They can install operating systems while all your kids know how to do is swipe.

Do you like how I jumped to a bunch of bullshit conclusions that I have no clue about?

You raise your kids and I will raise mine.

Last I heard, all the providers in the US are in the “we’re not actively canceling them, but we won’t roll out new ones or fix problems.

Think of all the kids who grew up without a computer and now they have no idea how they work and can't do basic tasks.

Hi there. Didn't have a computer until the 12th grade.

In the 30 years I've been working with Linux professionally, some of it was at a distro, working to secure it, and also Unix. I've managed an ungodly number of computer hosts, and I took over and maintained a somewhat well-known security tool I'm not gonna name. Lately I do automation: mgmtConfig when I can, Ansible if they pay me so much I can forget just how amazingly bad it is.

I was getting paid for Linux work long before I got a cell phone.

Yes, that seems to be the case. If you do cancel and move, the new owners won’t get a landline. The carrier in this particular area has also contracted out any rural service work.

Uh ok mate thanks for your life story. Did computers even exist when you were in the 12th grade?

I fail to see how this is at all relevant to kids in the modern age being kept away from technology. Not having technology access today is completely different to 30 years ago.

Even if we pretend your experience is related id say you were a statical outlier. Most people who are not shown how to use technology will not become adept at using it. Thats why we try and introduce kids to a wide range of things in schooling.

The kids with technology are creating things earlier and earlier, recently a 16 year old made a game that took the record from fortnite for most concurrent players 21million. Growing up with access to technology opens them to an entire world of inspiration and I think if its managed by parents its a powerful tool that I'd never want my kids missing.

I love how on the internet all it takes for someone to call someone a shit parent is a mild difference of opinion.

It's just 0 -> 100 at the drop of a hat. Its fucking hilarious to me.

Agree, my child only uses dial up internet, I find that they don't have the patience for the page loading times and forget about streaming. /s

No, I always pulled out.

This.

My wife and I have 5 kids. The two eldest have phones (Pinwheel phones), and we also have a Switch and some tablets. When asked about playing on devices, we have told them more than a few times to go play with toys or to just go outside (weather permitting). Sometimes a tantrum happens, at which point they lose all device privileges for a certain amount of time until they shape up.

Dial-up would take several minutes just to load the framework of a modern webpage.