I’m terrified of my son getting a phone. He has an ipad already, which is pretty close, but he keeps that at home so it’s easier for me to monitor it. There just seems to be so many pitfalls with smart phone usage, but I also know that it is inevitable that he will have one so I really want to make sure that he is prepared for it.

Here are some big things that scare me about him getting a phone:

Scammers and Catfishing

I’m worried that he will get scammed. I know that I can teach him about this, but I also know that even with all of the knowledge about scams, if you aren’t careful, you can end up giving sensitive information to someone who will use it for their own personal gain. As vigilant and tech-saavy as I like to think that I am, even I have been close to falling for some really convincing scams. Just recently a friend messaged me on Facebook and I was certain that it was them, only to realize that they had been hacked and it was actually a scammer.

I also worry about catfishing. I remember the days of going into chat rooms on AOL and striking up conversations with random screen names and asking them about their lives and being a naive middle school kid, I believed them. With the amount of messaging and ways to communicate with people these days, I’m worried that he will get catfished and end up giving out personal information to someone who is not who they say they are.

Alternate Viewpoints

My son is really into youtube videos that have alternate takes on movies like Star Wars. I’m sure you have seen those. The ones that provide evidence and an argument that proves the Jedi were the real bad guys and that the evil empire was actually good and was the real heros. Now, that is harmless and fun, but we all know that there are much more dangerous alternate viewpoints out there. I’m worried about the types of idealogy that will appeal to him and that he will potentially be exposed to. I am not making on a judgement on any particular viewpoint, but I do know that there are some viewpoints that are dangerous and I don’t want him to be exposed to them at this age without having proper context.

Oversharing

This one is something that I never had to deal with at his age, other than one time that I took a picture of my naked butt and posted it as my profile piture on a random Yahoo profile page of some sort, back in like 1999 or 2000 I think. I was a freshman in high school and thought it would be funny. Fortunately for me, this picture doesn’t live on, but I know that there are kids today who are living in a time in which any single photo, video, or post that goes out has the potential to mark them for the rest of their lives. They could easily become a meme or a viral video and that could be something that they have to deal with for the rest of their lives. I’m worried that he will post something that he thinks is funny or cool and it will end up being something that he regrets later in life.

The List Goes On and On

I know that there are so many more things that I could list here, but I am just trying to sort through my feelings so that I can think more logically about my approach. All of the issues above can happen in real life as well, to a certain extent. Scammers have existed before the internet, alternate and dangerous ideologies have existed long before phones, and making mistakes comes with being human. It just seems like the stakes are higher now and phones bring more opportunities for these things to happen.

So, my goal is to work on a plan before giving my oldest son a phone. The first one is to think through how old he will be when he gets a phone? I will start there, and then we will see where it goes!