huge distraction in class<\/a>, and younger kids don\u2019t really need them, educators argued. Students may use their phones to text classmates, take pictures, watch videos or even cheat in class.<\/p>\n\u201cMy kids did not get a cellphone until they went to high school,\u201d one educator wrote in an open-ended response portion of the survey. \u201cThe kids have become addicted to them during and after COVID. The parents are just as addicted to their need to be in constant contact with the kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cChildren do not need cellphones until there is a need for parents to communicate about unknown pickup\/drop-off times,\u201d another wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think cellphone age is a very hard thing to nail down because it is dependent on the family and the child,\u201d wrote another. \u201cMy kids played high level athletics at an early age, which required quite a bit of travel. … We felt at about 9 they needed it for things like that. I think parents should hold off as long as they can.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no research suggesting students should get a cellphone at a particular age<\/p>\n
So is there a recommended, research-based age for giving kids a cellphone or other mobile device?<\/p>\n
No, said Jill Murphy, the chief content officer at Common Sense Media, a research and advocacy organization focused on youth and technology.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no right age, there\u2019s no number,\u201d Murphy said. That can be frustrating for parents, and by extension, for educators to whom families look for guidance, she acknowledged. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re all desperate for \u2018just tell me what the right age is,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cWe all want an age. We all want rules. We all want guidance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Families and caregivers should instead look at their child\u2019s individual context. \u201cThe hard truth is that one 13-year-old is not the same as another 13-year-old,\u201d Murphy said.<\/p>\n
When asked for their advice on the subject, educators should encourage parents to consider questions like: \u201cHow [is my child] behaviorally? Are they acting out a lot? Are they really mature? <\/p>\n
\u201cHave [we] had real discussions about some really heavy topics? Do they have a sense of not just right and wrong, but appropriate and inappropriate? What are the trust factors that you\u2019re struggling with as a parent with your kid?\u201d Murphy said. \u201cContext matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
The EdWeek Research Center survey of 694 educators was conducted from May 28 to July 1 of this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The optimal age for students to get their first cellphone is between 12 and 14, according to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[165,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-307465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-mobile","9":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}