\u201cOur neighbour was like: \u2018Everybody, text him right now, we\u2019re all going to get them,\u2019\u201d Zemer says. <\/p>\n
Within days, they were among the first parents to acquire an early model of what has now become a virally popular phone for kids – the Tin Can, a WiFi-enabled, curly corded landline that allows parents to control the hours when it is in use and which phone numbers are approved to call in to (or be called from) the closed network.<\/p>\n
In the year since then, Zemer says, the Tin Can has been transformative for her children, aged 5 and 8. <\/p>\n
Her 8-year-old son has autonomy to call his friends when he wants to talk; the neighbourhood kids often work out their own meet-ups, without their parents having to text one another. <\/p>\n
The landline has also been a boon for the children\u2019s relationship with their grandparents, Zemer says.<\/p>\n
They used to video-chat over FaceTime, but \u201cthe kids would get so distracted by the screen and the poop emojis they could drop in, and how they could change their face or turn into a unicorn\u201d, she says. <\/p>\n
\u201cNow they have thoughtful, nuanced conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among the parents in their neighbourhood community, she adds, there is a unanimous sense of gratitude for their landline phones. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen such a social dynamic shift, a change in the kids and in the way they communicate with one another,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019ve really doubled down on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
This scenario remains an outlier in a reality where smartphones are ubiquitous among American adolescents and teenagers.<\/p>\n
The Pew Research Centre reports that 95% of teens ages 13 to 17 have or have access to smartphones.<\/p>\n
And a rising number of parents are worried about what that level of exposure means for their kids. <\/p>\n
Many have sought other options, like \u201cdumb phones\u201d or smartwatches, or signing a pledge to withhold smartphones until the kids start high school. <\/p>\n
The landline phone \u2013 a mainstay of Gen X- and millennial-generation childhoods \u2013 is having something of a renaissance. Photo \/ 123RF <\/p>\n
Now, as more parents look to steer their children away from screens and social media, the landline phone \u2013 a mainstay of Gen X- and millennial-generation childhoods \u2013 is having something of a renaissance. <\/p>\n
Over the northern summer, a group of parents in Maine made headlines after they established a \u201clandline pod\u201d of families who opted for stationary, corded, audio-only phones for their kids. <\/p>\n
One mum created an online resource for other parents who are inspired to do the same. <\/p>\n
Kylie Kelce, wife of retired NFL player Jason Kelce, set off a spirited discussion after announcing on a July episode of her podcast that she plans to implement what she called \u201cthe kitchen phone\u201d rule for her four daughters \u2013 an extra cellphone that would \u201clive in the kitchen\u201d, she explained; not a landline, exactly, but a similar effect.<\/p>\n
Amy Tunick, a mum-of-two in New York state, learned about the Tin Can through a group chat of parents from her daughter\u2019s camp. <\/p>\n
The parents had been looking for ways to help their kids keep in touch with camp friends during the year. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a lot of excitement among the parents on that text chain,\u201d Tunick says. <\/p>\n
After feeling less than impressed with her 12-year-old son\u2019s Apple Watch, she was ready to try something different for her 9-year-old daughter.<\/p>\n
The phone arrived earlier this month, and so far, they\u2019re pleased, Tunick says. She likes that her daughter knows she can call her grandparents, her friends or 911. <\/p>\n
Her kids have long understood that they won\u2019t have smartphones until high school, at least \u2013 so the Tin Can \u201cfeels like kind of a delay tactic\u201d, she says, something fun and social to offer in the meantime.<\/p>\n
Tin Can co-founder and chief executive Chet Kittleson, a Seattle father-of-three, says the idea for the reinvented landline first came to him in 2022 at after-school pick-up. <\/p>\n
A group of parents were chatting and scheduling catch-ups he recalls, and one mum joked that she felt like her daughter\u2019s executive assistant. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo I said, \u2018remember when we were growing up, and our social network was the landline?\u2019\u201d he says. <\/p>\n
They all laughed (and some recited their high school best friends\u2019 numbers from memory), but Kittleson found himself holding on to the idea of a landline phone with parental controls. He wondered whether it might be a solution to a dilemma that his family was struggling with.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt sandwiched by these two problems: On one hand, I didn\u2019t want my kid to have unfettered access to a pretty addictive thing, and on the other hand, I did want them to be able to call their friend and say, \u2018Hey, do you want to spend the night at my house tonight?\u2019\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Kittleson remembers how thrilled his then-9-year-old daughter was the first time she heard the prototype ring. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the first time she\u2019d ever heard an analogue phone ring,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n
Within a week or so, Kittleson and his two co-founders were dropping off phones at friends\u2019 houses. <\/p>\n
He told those friends to let him know whether other parents were interested \u2013 and soon he was bombarded with text messages from other families who wanted one of these phones.<\/p>\n
Pew reports that 95% of teens ages 13 to 17 have or have access to smartphones \u2013 but a rising number of parents are worried about what that level of exposure means for their kids. Photo \/ 123RF<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw a very natural virality. Within a couple of days I had dozens of text messages from parents around west Seattle, asking \u2018Can I get one?\u2019\u201d he says. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe kids lost their minds. They were so excited when the phone rang, they would jump over the couch to see who it was. The no-caller-ID thing was surprisingly magical \u2013 you always knew it was someone you wanted to talk to, it\u2019s an approved contact, but you didn\u2019t know who it was.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the past year, he says, the company has sold \u201ctens of thousands\u201d of the phones to households in all 50 states and Canada; they\u2019re currently back-ordered, with deliveries expected by December.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a cultural moment, a big shift happening. People are becoming really aware and awakened to this idea that we have an unhealthy relationship with technology, and we\u2019re feeling a little cut off from the people that matter most to us. We all know there is a problem,\u201d Kittleson says. \u201cFor us, this feels like an antidote.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lindsey Voorhees, a mum-of-three and an early childhood autism consultant in Oregon, plans to stick to the same rule for all of her children: no smartphones before high school and no social media until at least age 16. <\/p>\n
But Voorhees also wants her children to have the opportunity to develop social skills and engage with friends independently \u2013 so a landline phone feels like a good compromise.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been able to present the landline as something to look forward to: \u2018You can help us pick it out. You\u2019ll be able to call your friend and ask if he\u2019s available for a [catch-up],\u2019\u201d she says. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re excited about it. We can tell them funny stories about landlines when we were kids, because that\u2019s what we had, and they like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The family plans to set up their landline in a central, shared space, Voorhees says. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe will teach them how to answer the phone. Kids don\u2019t even know how to answer phones. They don\u2019t know how to say hello and have a brief conversation with an adult if they\u2019re trying to get hold of their friend. There\u2019s really an entire generation that is incapable of basic interactions.\u201d<\/p>\n
She wants better than that for her kids, she says, and she believes a growing number of parents feel the same. \u201cMomentum is building,\u201d she says. \u201cI just wish there was more haste.\u201d<\/p>\n
In her Seattle neighbourhood, Zemer says, she\u2019s seen what\u2019s possible when parents collectively buy into a different form of social connection for their kids. <\/p>\n
Just the other day, her son wanted to play with a neighbour on a Saturday morning. He used his Tin Can to call his friend, \u201cand she said, \u2018I can\u2019t play \u2013 I have to clean my bedroom,\u2019\u201d she says. <\/p>\n
So her son asked if he could come over to help, \u201cand before you know it, he\u2019s over there at her house and was there for four or five hours\u201d, Zemer says. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey made her room immaculate. They strung Christmas lights under her bed and made a fort.\u201d<\/p>\n
This would never have happened, she says, without the landline phone. <\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t have let him just walk over there and knock on the door, and I wasn\u2019t going to text a mum or dad to ask if he could come over,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt alleviated some of those social barriers and allowed them to engage in something that wasn\u2019t a structured play date. They were bored together. They cleaned together. They had so much fun just being together.\u201d<\/p>\n
– Caitlin Gibson is a feature writer focused on families, parenting and children.<\/p>\n
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor\u2019s Picks<\/a>, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week\u2019s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cOur neighbour was like: \u2018Everybody, text him right now, we\u2019re all going to get them,\u2019\u201d Zemer says. Within…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[15408,6127,3471,27518,42055,1863,3021,138,198,2511,1061,46518,13845,8985,5988,3011,34888,78,28488,685,46519,111,139,69,1118,34962,3766,26728,46517,4535,871,11555,223,165,684,4157,3608],"class_list":["post-55077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-almost","tag-already","tag-among","tag-asking","tag-autumn","tag-back","tag-bring","tag-business","tag-can","tag-child","tag-children","tag-closeknit","tag-eight","tag-era","tag-families","tag-four","tag-helps","tag-in","tag-landline","tag-last","tag-neighbourhood","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-oldest","tag-parents","tag-seattle","tag-seattles","tag-smartphone","tag-smartphones","tag-started","tag-the","tag-their","tag-there","tag-tin","tag-were"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}