Comment by TacticalCoder

I can already see a big difference between "kids" that are now 20 and those that are 10: parents are now way more aware of how nasty and exploitative social media are.

Ten years ago parents had zero issue handing their used phone to their kid when buying a new one. Now many parents have a "no phone whatsover until at least 13 years old" (some even pick an older age).

Schools too: it's very common now to have school with a very strict "phone stays in the locker or you get disciplined" policy.

I did buy my 10 y/o a "phonewatch" (I'm not calling it a "smartwatch" for it's really dumb). A real one, with its own SIM card (funnily enough it's a real, physical, SIM card, not an eSIM). So she can do what a phone what supposed to allow: give and receive phonecalls. Some people shall buy a dumbphone I guess. Works too. That watch's screen is so tiny and pathetic that it's impossible to anything with it: no TikTok. No Instagram. No nothing. (we're in control anyway, with an app on our phones, of what goes on the "phonewatch").

Kid knows that she won't have a phone before at least 13. Maybe 15. That's the deal.

The thing is: as a parent, you are the boss and you set up the rules. A kid is not the boss.

We're no luddite: she's also one hour of Nintendo Switch play per day. She can have fun solving "code monkey" coding puzzles on a computer. She's allowed to watch a few Minecraft vids.

But mindless media consumerism no a smartphone at 10 y/o, like some of the other kids at school are doing as soon as they're not at school? No way. We simply don't allow that.

> How do you prevent the impact of social media on your children?

By being the boss.

P.S: as a sidenote good luck bypassing the DNS blocker I put in place without an admin account. On my LAN, I'm the boss too. No SIM: no SIM to put somewhere else. SIM subscriptions with monthly allowed data usage set to 0 bytes works darn well too (we've got one such SIM).