Dean Moriarty via Pixabay

As the holiday season rears its festive head, children are beginning to write novel-length Christmas lists. They will ask for gifts big, small and, at times, quite unreasonable. It has become more and more common for children of younger ages to ask for smartphones from their parents. As the years go by and smartphones become more common, parents are questioning: “When is the right time to buy my child a smartphone?”

One stance comes from parents who believe children should get phones as early as possible. According to a study done by Influence Central, in this generation, the average child that gets a smartphone gets one around age 10. Mary Palmer, mother of two, believes getting young children a smartphone is the safest option. “Smartphones are easy to use and teach children independence at an early age.” Although it might seem like children gain responsibility and independence from having to take care of their own smartphone, they end up growing dependent upon the phone instead. A study done by Common Sense Media states that teens spend an average of nine hours a day on screen media and children ages 8-12 spend roughly six hours a day. At such a young age, children are still going through early developmental stages. They should be taking this time to increase their social and emotional development by spending time with family and friends. Having a smartphone at this age stunts the growth of these vital skills.

Catherine Steiner-Adair, clinical psychologist and author of “The Big Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships from the Digital Age,” firmly believes that subjecting your child to large amounts of technology at a young age is the biggest roadblock to developing necessary social and emotional skills: “When you give a middle schooler a fully-loaded computer, which is a smartphone, they disappear from face-to-face contact.” Face-to-face contact is the best way for children to learn and develop these critical skills. By giving them a smartphone, you take away these personal connections and instead give them full access to numerous bad influences found on the internet.

It’s no secret that there are numerous dark, scary places on the worldwide web. By giving curious youngsters easy access to this with little parental supervision, they could easily discover some of these dangerous influences. To read more about this, read this article on a recent incident, popularly known as “Elsagate”.

Overall, giving children phones stunts the overall development of young kids. Children should not be allowed to have smartphones, or even phones in general, until they are old enough to know how to live without them.