My kids are in elementary school, and a lot of their friends are starting to get smartwatches. This is not something that was ever on my radar, but I see the appeal! Any research on…anything about this?
We got our kids very basic smartwatches when they were 8-9. They didn’t get a whole lot of use. Was fine for safety tracking - but needed to be charged and on. (Pop an AirTag into their backpack instead) Cheap smartwatch had limited battery life, so really limited utility.
Now they’re into phones, which has way broader use/appeal obviously.
- I’m new to Substack - hope it’s not impolite to add link to my recent article about phone cameras
When our son turned 12 in July we got him an Apple smartwatch. And we went through a very similar “why” conversation, first with us then with him. The biggest intersect was that he often needed to call us after school and couldn’t, and we had no way to reach him either. We really threw on all the controls (we are sooooo lucky he hates social media) as well as the school hours restrictions, which his school requires. The times he’s called because the bus broke down or the late bus never showed has justified the purchase.
The one point of difference was he wanted a way to talk to friends and listen to music. We were skeptical of him staying connected with others, but it wound up being very important to him, so much so that he’s now requesting a phone. (When I was his age our phone was in the kitchen attached to the wall with a really long cord!) So we’re going through the conversations again examining use cases.
I don’t think we’d do any of this without parental controls and prohibitions (which take work!) and also knowing that our son treats tech very differently than his peers. Our younger daughter on the other hand … 😂
We got our kids very basic smartwatches when they were 8-9. They didn’t get a whole lot of use. Was fine for safety tracking - but needed to be charged and on. (Pop an AirTag into their backpack instead) Cheap smartwatch had limited battery life, so really limited utility.
Now they’re into phones, which has way broader use/appeal obviously.
- I’m new to Substack - hope it’s not impolite to add link to my recent article about phone cameras
https://open.substack.com/pub/snapalanche/p/your-best-new-camera-is-a-phone?r=oje9t&utm_medium=ios
When our son turned 12 in July we got him an Apple smartwatch. And we went through a very similar “why” conversation, first with us then with him. The biggest intersect was that he often needed to call us after school and couldn’t, and we had no way to reach him either. We really threw on all the controls (we are sooooo lucky he hates social media) as well as the school hours restrictions, which his school requires. The times he’s called because the bus broke down or the late bus never showed has justified the purchase.
The one point of difference was he wanted a way to talk to friends and listen to music. We were skeptical of him staying connected with others, but it wound up being very important to him, so much so that he’s now requesting a phone. (When I was his age our phone was in the kitchen attached to the wall with a really long cord!) So we’re going through the conversations again examining use cases.
I don’t think we’d do any of this without parental controls and prohibitions (which take work!) and also knowing that our son treats tech very differently than his peers. Our younger daughter on the other hand … 😂
Yes- our kids are each VERY different in their attitude to social media.
Thank you for these excellent answers to a really important questions!