If you’ve followed me and my wife for any length of time, you probably know we’ve been on a journey with smartphones. A few years ago, I had the attitude that all kids have them — that’s just how it is now.
But over the past couple of years, it’s become crystal clear to us: smartphones should be nowhere near our children. Honestly, I think we’ll look back at this era and see it as one of the biggest mistakes we ever made.
Our daughter is in Year 5, and only a handful of kids in her class don’t have smartphones. Knowing what we know now — that’s scary, and honestly, kind of heartbreaking.
The Reasons…
1. It Destroys Their Motivation
We recently had TJ Power on our podcast, and it was eye-opening. I’ve had so many messages from parents saying it completely changed their perspective.
One of the biggest takeaways? Dopamine. It’s the brain chemical behind motivation — we need it to move, speak, and take action. There are healthy dopamine pathways (like going to the gym or learning something new), where it builds gradually and then returns to baseline.
Smartphones, though? They hijack that system. They trigger huge spikes of dopamine — followed by a sharp crash below baseline. That crash brings on withdrawal-like symptoms: irritability, low mood, and cravings for another hit.
That’s why kids lose it when you take the iPad away — their brains are desperate to get back to that dopamine high. Repeat that cycle enough, and their baseline motivation drops. Even basic tasks feel overwhelming. Some teens are so depleted, they can’t get out of bed.
Junk food, porn, drugs — they all do this. But for our kids today, smartphones are the biggest source of that instant-hit, long-term-harm pattern.
If you want to go deeper, that episode with TJ is a game-changer. It shifted everything for me.
2. Bullying (We’ve Already Seen It Firsthand)
This is the part that scares me most.
Our daughter doesn’t even have a phone, and yet a WhatsApp group was created just to bully her. I won’t go into all the details here — we’ll talk more about it on next week’s podcast — but it’s rampant. Especially on apps like WhatsApp and Snapchat.
And the worst part? We might not even know it’s happening.
We all like to think our kids would come to us, but I’m not taking that chance — especially not with a 10-year-old girl. Kids as young as eight are being handed what are essentially bullying machines. It’s shocking.
And it’s not that these are “bad” kids doing the bullying. Most of them are great kids in person. But their brains just aren’t developed enough to handle this tech responsibly. The tools are too powerful and too unfiltered for their age.
That’s why we’ve got to work together as parents. It’s the only way this changes.
3. Opportunity Cost: They Should Be Doing Other Stuff
I loved being a kid. I was outside constantly — playing sport, going to the park, completely addicted to golf.
Today, even the kids who do enjoy things like golf, they often check out after one round because it’s not as stimulating as Snapchat or TikTok. And that’s really sad when you say it out loud.
We have our whole adult lives to be glued to screens. Childhood shouldn’t be wasted on mindless scrolling. Kids need space to explore, move, create, and be bored — boredom leads to imagination. Smartphones short-circuit all of that.
The Trend Is Turning (And We Got Lucky)
I genuinely think we got lucky. Our girl is 10 — if she were 13 or 14 now, she probably would’ve had a phone earlier. A few years ago, the awareness just wasn’t there, and once kids are in the smartphone loop, it’s hard to pull them out. Their whole social world forms around it.
But now, things are changing.
More and more parents are questioning this. I really believe that in a few years, it won’t be the norm for 10-year-olds to have iPhones — and hopefully, kids won’t be bullied for not having one.
Because that’s the current reality: we’ve walked blindly into this, and now kids are bullied because their parents are trying to protect them. So, we give in to the lesser evil.
But if we all hold the line together, we can change the trajectory.
Final Thoughts
The only way this shift’s is if we — as parents — get on the same page.
There are plenty of phone options out there that allow calling and texting without pulling kids into the social media vortex. You don’t have to go all or nothing.
This is honestly one of the biggest parenting issues of our time. And the only way we fix it is together.
If you’re interested in being part of that change, The Parent Pact from Smartphone-Free Childhood is a great place to start.
I know this newsletter is heavier than usual, but this is something I feel incredibly passionate about. Thanks for reading. I’d love to hear your thoughts — whether you agree or see it totally differently.
We need to talk about this stuff, openly and honestly.