TikTok just dropped a new realistic beauty filter

Buying your child a smartphone seems increasingly unwise as time goes on.

same could be said about many adults)

It's a huge catch-22:

You need a smartphone to take part in modern social life. (Yes, adults can choose life without a smartphone or any social media, in reality teenagers can't without being ostracised).

On the other hand using smartphones and social media can also result in stress and comparing your ordinary life to other people's highlights.

What about a smartphone that is locked down? Apps are curated by parents and certain websites blocked.

Also, there are tons of things that have ostracized teenagers in the last. Why do smartphones have such a stranglehold? It seems we are becoming more and more afraid of being different.

It's not "being different" not having a smartphone to keep in contact with your peers is akin to being homeschooled /w no hobbies. You basically have no social circle to speak of.

Without a smartphone and access to the chat app of choice, you'll be left out of a good part of out-of-school socialisation. For example nobody gives out invites to birthdays on cards at class anymore, they do it via WhatsApp and you reply the same way.

Yea, but access to chatting apps isn't necessarily the same as access to social media apps, except maybe Facebook's messaging. Having WhatsApp, text messaging, iMessage, Line, WeChat, etc. doesn't mean you need to install TikTok or Instagram.

That's what we have screen time limits for. You can set the screen time for those apps to 0 minutes.

That was part of my original point.

Your kid will get ridiculed for their locked down phone.

I got ridiculed for wearing glasses, having to wear a mouth guard in sports because of braces, having long legs, crossing my legs, being "clean", the wheels on my truck, for the music I liked. Who cares?

Nah, screen time is perfectly normal for kids under 10-12 nowadays.

Actually, your kids care

I'm not sure training to minimize ridicule or being different is all that effective in the long run. Will someone in their 20s, 30s, and 40s remark that they really wish they could have been on TikTok more when they were younger?

The kid may turn out better if they can be taught to rise above the ridicule, rather than being shielded from it