11/21/2025
If you ask 20 parents the best age for a child to get a smartphone, you’ll probably get 20 different answers. That’s because we have yet to come to a consensus on when children are ready to have 24-hour-a-day contact with their friends and be subject to a brain-altering deluge of information algorithmically distributed to them by big tech companies.
Smartphones also expose users to all the harmful material available online and make them more vulnerable to bullying.
According to Common Sense Media, 42% of 10-year-olds report having smartphones. By age 12, that number increases to 71%; by age 14, it’s 91%. But what is the best age to give a child a smartphone?
Wait Until 8th draws a line in the sand by saying the earliest a child should have a smartphone is after they've completed the 8th grade. “That is a reasonable time for parents to wait, and everyone will make a different decision for their family. Of course, the longer you can wait, the better," Mark SooHoo, a parent volunteer for the Wait Until 8th movement, told Upworthy.
SooHoo says Jonathan Haidt’s recent landmark book, “The Anxious Generation: How the Rewriting of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness,” lays a strong foundation for delaying smartphone use.
In the book, Haidt cites research that shows how, right around 2010, the U.S. and other developed nations saw an astronomical spike in mental health problems among young people, including self-harm, su***de, psychological distress, anxiety and depression. The spike perfectly coincides with the adaptation of smartphone technology and the subsequent decline in time spent with friends.
Or, as Haidt would write, the dawn of the phone-based childhood era.
Source: Upworthy
All information provided by Wait Until 8th — https://www.facebook.com/waituntil8th — https://www.waituntil8th.org/
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