Parent here. This is a LOT easier today than it was 5-10 years ago.
It feels like there's been a generation divide where younger kids are not as insistent on smartphones as the older kids were. Maybe it was covid. But also there's a lot of negative sentiment even amongst kids about smartphones - that they are addictive, encourage anti-social behaviors, and enable bullying. "Brain-rot".
Our local school district banned phones during school hours just this last year and there has been an overwhelming positive sentiment from faculty and kids.
We don't otherwise do things like track screen time. Our kids have videogames and computers and tablets. But we're providing a dumbphone in late grade school and so far there are no protests to get anything else.
I'm 26, so now a decade removed from the relevant age bracket here, but was one of the first waves to hit high school with a majority of students having smartphones.
There's been a palpable shift in peers (and myself) post-pandemic with regards to phones and social media in particular. A lot more emphasis being placed on being present in person and a lot more skepticism across the board towards phones/social media. Peers are starting to have kids and almost none of them are posting pictures of their kids and when it's come up in conversation they're doing everything they can to delay ipads/smartphones.
I am 38 years old. I attend concerts very frequently, and - though it’s uncommon - some shows don’t allow photos or videos, at the artist’s request. And it’s enforced by venue staff.
Even as someone who enjoys taking videos at concerts, I really like the vibe at shows that have a no-photo/no-video policy. It increases audience engagement, and it stops the phenomenon where everyone has their phone held high in the air, blocking the view during popular songs.
I used to take video at concerts, a lot of it. And I rarely if ever went back and watched it in any meaningful capacity. It became dead space on my phone.
But at some point I started a ritual of recording of the performer coming out, picking up their instruments, and the first 20-30 seconds of the opening song. Then I put my phone away for the rest of the concert.
These videos are dear to me. They capture the feeling of the concert more than any longer random moment from before. I have a small library of them and I love to rewatch.
I wouldn't mind a concert enforcing those rules at all, though I appreciate that I've found a way to immortalize the moment in a way that coincidentally helps me feel comfortable putting away my phone for the rest of the night.
I've had this same thought. I have younger kids, so we haven't yet reached the point of needing to contend with all this (e.g. "...but everyone else has an iPhone and Instagram and Tik-Tok account..."), and I've been encouraged by what seems like an increasingly popular movement to deal with it through collective action. It does seem like parents with kids 5-10 years older went through the worst of it; with society caught off-guard and any parent who fought the problem going hard against the grain.
i think the overall quality of the experience using todays phones has tanked when compared to that of phones 15 years ago. when's the last time an app with angry birds' popularity was released? you cant even get the original angry birds game anymore; its rereleased with ads and microtransactions.
It feels like there's been a generation divide where younger kids are not as insistent on smartphones as the older kids were. Maybe it was covid. But also there's a lot of negative sentiment even amongst kids about smartphones - that they are addictive, encourage anti-social behaviors, and enable bullying. "Brain-rot".
Our local school district banned phones during school hours just this last year and there has been an overwhelming positive sentiment from faculty and kids.
We don't otherwise do things like track screen time. Our kids have videogames and computers and tablets. But we're providing a dumbphone in late grade school and so far there are no protests to get anything else.