I used to compare the drawbacks of no smartphones for kids to growing up in a house with no or limited TV, until my mother emailed to complain with a point that has really stayed with me, which is that at least she was also willing to do without a TV.
Said it before, but to reiterate:
"Ban social media for under 16s"
"internet-free phones for children"
These ideas may have worked 20 years ago, but that horse bolted so long ago, it's galloped around the planet and is now approaching the stable from the opposite direction
/1
So I didn't have even the simplest of mobiles until quite late, in a way that put me a bit out of step with my peers in a few ways, and I didn't have MSN til around the same age and I think my parents would say these days that this maybe wasn't the best set of calls to make for my social life
When I was 16-18 (2005) and had started to finally make friends they did quite consciously revise the policy and I got sole ownership of the emergency phone I shared with my mum.
And I do think being the one kid in my year in a posh school who had neither MSN or a phone (and just had to call landlines) probably contributed to how vile some of the bits of bullying were, in a way my folks didn't entirely appreciate
(They were, rightly, quite worried about me being cyber bullied or groomed. But given how outstandingly good they were at Providing Adult Supervision, I think that may have been less of a risk than they feared)
