How It Can Be Difficult to Keep Up with Smartphones and Their Associated Risks [One Minute Feature] - Trace Embry

It seems like we are always hearing about some new way that our kids could run into danger on their smartphones. Sometimes it feels like the task of keeping our kids safe online is growing harder every day.

Because it is so difficult to keep up with smartphones and the risks they present, perhaps it is time for parents to take another approach. Maybe we should reconsider the viability of putting smartphones in the hands of children in the first place.

How Constant Updates Make It Difficult for Parents to Keep Up with Smartphones

As I read all the helpful internet sites that attempt to inform parents about alerts, strategies, and protections related to their kids’ smartphone use, I’m grateful and discouraged at the same time. Because, unless we can make careers out of comprehensively understanding all it takes to reduce our kids’ smartphones to mere limited liabilities, it is insanity, in my humble opinion, to give them smartphones.

Raising kids before the advent of the internet was challenging enough. But we will never be proficient or efficient enough in keeping up with all the new apps—and other smartphone liabilities—to justify their benefits to kids. The risk isn’t worth the reward, and the ends surely don’t justify the means.

Picture provided by: Jan Vašek