At What Age Will You Allow your Kids to Have Phones and Use Social Media?

00:00:00.000 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:00:03.280 | All right, Jennifer asks, at what age

00:00:08.600 | will you allow your kids to have phones and access

00:00:11.040 | to social media?

00:00:12.920 | Well, we'll see, Jennifer.

00:00:14.320 | I mean, I think the culture around this, as I talk about,

00:00:16.680 | is changing.

00:00:17.200 | So by the time it's relevant, the culture on this

00:00:19.880 | may have already changed.

00:00:21.520 | But in general, right now, the way I think about it

00:00:23.680 | is I'm fine with flip phones.

00:00:27.800 | Whatever age it is that it becomes convenient for you

00:00:30.760 | to be able to text your kid.

00:00:33.480 | They're at sports practice, and can you come pick me up?

00:00:35.800 | Or they want to text their friends,

00:00:37.020 | like, are you coming over today?

00:00:38.480 | I don't know what age that becomes relevant.

00:00:41.640 | But a flip phone is fine.

00:00:42.680 | I have no problem with text communication,

00:00:45.520 | and I recognize that it's useful.

00:00:47.520 | Giving a kid, however, access to a full smartphone,

00:00:50.560 | or they have unrestricted access to the internet and social

00:00:52.960 | media, sanctioning your kid having social media accounts,

00:00:56.720 | I would say 16 at the youngest.

00:00:58.680 | 18, from the psychology perspective, is probably better.

00:01:01.720 | Hey, when you leave this house, you do you.

00:01:04.600 | But nothing good is going to come from an adolescent brain

00:01:06.960 | having access to it.

00:01:08.320 | This doesn't make me popular among a lot of teenagers.

00:01:11.200 | However, as I've written before and talked about before,

00:01:13.880 | the culture is changing on this.

00:01:15.480 | I think the idea that teenagers should be using social media

00:01:18.840 | is something that we'll look back on six or seven years

00:01:21.040 | from now and say that was not a good idea.

00:01:24.120 | Teenagers themselves are also increasingly

00:01:26.320 | turning on this.

00:01:27.120 | They have moved most of their socializing out

00:01:29.640 | of tools such as Snapchat and into instant messenger and text

00:01:32.920 | messaging.

00:01:33.760 | So social media no longer really plays

00:01:36.000 | as critical of a role in their social life.

00:01:38.280 | So it's much easier for them to not be on, say, Instagram

00:01:41.280 | or to not be on Snapchat because they're using text and WhatsApp

00:01:44.800 | type tools.

00:01:46.360 | Now the role these tools play in young people's lives

00:01:49.840 | is increasingly more cultural and entertainment related.

00:01:53.720 | So TikTok is very popular with young kids.

00:01:57.440 | But not being on TikTok is not nearly as big of an issue

00:02:00.480 | as seven or eight years ago not being on Snapchat

00:02:03.960 | because people aren't using TikTok to talk to each other.

00:02:07.000 | People aren't using TikTok to discuss

00:02:10.560 | with other people in their schools, the party that

00:02:12.640 | went on, or to see where people are going,

00:02:14.440 | or to be plugged into a social scene.

00:02:16.080 | They're largely consuming content on TikTok.

00:02:19.480 | So if you're not using it, who cares?

00:02:22.040 | You're communicating with your friends on text.

00:02:24.160 | They might be using TikTok.

00:02:25.200 | If you're not, what do you miss?

00:02:26.160 | There's some cultural theme that you don't know about.

00:02:28.640 | So I think things are getting better with that.

00:02:30.600 | But honestly, that is my read of the psychological literature

00:02:33.240 | right now is be very, very wary of giving

00:02:35.400 | the adolescent brain unrestricted access

00:02:37.560 | to social internet tools.

00:02:39.240 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:02:42.600 | [Music]

At What Age Will You Allow your Kids to Have Phones and Use Social Media?

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