Dearest almost third grader,
I write this letter as much for you as I do for myself, in the hopes that the power of the written word will bind me to everything I’m about to lay out. Because inevitably, you’ll soon claim that my refusal to get you a phone is impinging on your ability to make friends, keep friends, do schoolwork, teleport into a classmate’s house via avatar — lord knows where we’ll be by then. And so, our family’s 10 commandments around phones — drawn in part by the research I did for my first book, for which I consulted myriad experts about the effects of technology on parenting — explaining why you and your siblings will not be getting a phone until high school.
1) Boredom is good.
This is something that experts repeated to me, time and time again. The best thing for developing brains is not constant input, but rather boredom, which allows the mind to wander, and inevitably create activity by itself. Smartphones are boredom killers, full stop. Instead? Pick up a book. Build a block tower with your younger siblings. Think.
2) Reading is an ideal solitary activity.
The other night when reading Roald Dahl to your little sister, I came upon the Oompa Loompas’ song about how television rots the brain. In response to parents asking what on Earth their children used to do before TV, the Oompa Loompas’ reply:
“THEY … USED … TO … READ! They’d READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!”
Dahl famously used to “blow dreams” in through the window of his children’s bedroom at night using a bamboo stick, indicating a commitment to magic and creativity that is as attainable to me as whipping up a soufflé for dinner. But I can do almost the same for you, simply by cracking open a book. Mentally speaking, reading is like broccoli, firing the neurons in the brain in precisely the right way. Bonus: It’s enjoyable! I will rarely, if ever, tell you to put the book down.
3) Grit is important.
I learned about the work of MacArthur genius grant winner Angela Duckworth when working with an educator trying to isolate what characteristics help children succeed. Duckworth believes “grit” — which she defines as passion and perseverance for long-term goals — is one of these. Zinging from one TikTok to another, then onto a text chain and back again, can only erode your attention span. Separately, will shunning smartphones require some effort? Absolutely. Will that effort make you stronger? Absolutely. (Nana didn’t really let me watch television until I was in high school. Did I occasionally sneak in episodes of “Beverly Hills, 90210” while pretending to use the NordicTrack for exercise? I did. And I survived, even though I never could participate in lunch table discussions about “Full House.” You’ll survive, too.)
4) We have a zero tolerance policy for social media for children.
Check out any number of studies or initiatives — the U.S. Surgeon General’s 2024 call for a warning label to be put on social media platforms; countless research indicating that adolescents (girls in particular) have skyrocketing mental health issues due to the platforms. Or I’ll tell you about children who’ve posted on social media, then regretted it. That’s not to mention the safety issues. Why would I expose you to potential anxiety, depression and worse?
5) I don’t care about your friends’ phone policies.
That classmate’s mother wants him to have an iPhone in case he gets lost coming home on the school bus. This one is nervous that if their child can’t take photos of science projects, or coordinate about class projects, their grades will suffer. I trust the bus system, and if necessary, I’ll send you to school with that old-school Polaroid camera you love. I recently signed the Wait Until 8th pledge for your grade — a movement that seeks to help parents band together and withhold smartphones from kids until the end of eighth grade. As of now, of 49 fellow classmates, 14 are in the no-smartphone camp. There is safety in numbers, but even without them, see No. 3 above.
6) We are not a luddite family.
I love how you use the iPad to film movies and then edit them, or how you study cooking shows, then help pack your sister’s lunchbox. You won’t be bereft of screens. Just not the utterly mindless, solo, pernicious kind.
7) Email, use the phone, type texts on the computer. Just don’t text on a phone.
I spent hours (hours!) chatting on my landline with friends at night after school. It was often mindless, and so what? Gossip with your friends! Prank call people! You want a pen pal? Fire up the computer and send an email. And what if you want to write back and forth in real time? I’m fine with live chats, occasionally, so long as they are on a large enough device that I can pop in every once in a while and take a look. Phones are too alluring, too shiny, too fast, too distracting, too damned solitary. Speaking of:
8) In-person socialization trumps virtual socialization.
When the fifth grader at our bus stop got an iPhone, instead of chatting with a seatmate, or waving out the window at her dad like she used to, she’d whip out her phone, then stay secluded like that as the bus drove off. I don’t care if everyone else on the bus has a smartphone. Look out the window and daydream. Bring that little audio player that only plays music and books on tape, and listen to something if there’s no one to talk to. But don’t zone out into a phone. And if you must, it’s better to zone out into someone else’s phone and watch something together. Which brings me to:
9) Screens should be communal.
Many experts reiterated that experiencing screens together wipes away some of their potentially deleterious effects. I am thrilled that we can now enjoy the same movies and shows, and plan to continue being involved, even when screens are smaller than a television. You will (**nearly, see next point) always be on a screen in the presence of one of us. That’s why I set up the laptop in the kitchen, so you can tool around as I get dinner ready.
And finally:
10) Everything in moderation.
Do you and your siblings spend Saturday mornings with the iPad? Are Daddy and I largely catatonic in bed next door, trying to eke out a few extra winks of shut-eye? Yes. Will I allow you some time to be alone with a device, to poke around and explore? I will, inevitably (see: me, my NordicTrack and Jason Priestly). But this will be the exception, not the rule.
Why not capitulate? Simply, because I know the risks outweigh the rewards, and my job is to keep you safe. Plus: If I hold you to these 10 rules, you’ll hold me to them, too. Safety in numbers. And the power of the written word. Here’s to a happy childhood, kiddo.