Here are five great reasons to help your teen ditch their smartphone—especially during the quarantine.
Distraction during virtual class
If your teen tries to tell you smartphones are necessary for learning, think again! Your teen doesn’t need a smartphone for school in a normal setting and he certainly doesn’t need one now. Texting and gaming during class are more prevalent with distance learning. We already know that teens can’t manage phones during school, but now it’s even harder for parents and teachers to set up necessary accountability to keep them focused. It’s difficult to pay attention in class when you are playing Fortnite, talking with your friends, or shopping for shoes on Amazon.
Too much idle time
With the shelter-in-place orders, our schedules went out the window and so did what was left of our teens’ self-control. Teen brains are wired to crave the dopamine release found in low-effort/high-reward smartphone activities. This activity is not all bad, but the more hours your teen spends mindlessly scrolling, the less motivated she’ll be for other activities. As idle time increases, so do temptations of drifting into risky online activities.
More anxiety
While you may not feel the same urgency as your teen to instantly respond to texts or posts, your teen is paralyzed with fear of rejection by peers who expect instant responses. Your daughter may feel constantly stressed and judged when she doesn’t answer a text or comment fast enough. She may experience anxiety and feel like the clock starts ticking every time she receives a text. This is a problem in everyday situations, but is magnified during quarantine. Without a schedule or routine, there’s an unspoken assumption that responses should be immediate, because what else are people doing? This stress is more than the average teen can handle, which is why so many are depressed.
Exposure to risky content
Safety is the most popular reason parents give their kids a phone in the first place. Parents want to stay in touch with their kids and constantly know where they are. But right now, we know exactly where our kids are. It’s not physical safety we need to be concerned with, but online safety. Your teen’s smartphone is the most unsafe place they can be right now. With so many kids staying home on their devices, there has been a spike in online predators and free access to porn sites during the quarantine. Access to smaller screens means more exposure to risky content. So move screen time to larger screens because it’s harder to feel comfortable surfing risky content on the TV in the family room or on the kitchen laptop in front of everyone.
Unreliable parental controls
It’s difficult for parents to manage small personal screens hidden in a teen’s pocket. Parental controls are necessary, but they’re not as effective as parents think they are. The quarantine is a great time for your child and her friends to figure out the workaround apps on phones. And with multi-age siblings trapped in the house together, you can’t control what younger siblings see on older siblings’ devices. If you have multiple children at home, it’s near impossible to police all their devices.
Additionally, most video games have mobile platforms. So even when parents set console limits, gamers can sneak away and game on their smartphones. Gaming is listed as the second highest grossing business since the quarantine (second only to groceries), and much of that gaming is occurring on phones.
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May 17, 2021 at 10:00AM
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Why You Should Disable Your Teen’s Smartphone - The Epoch Times
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