I linked to this thread, only because it's what got me thinking about this topic again. Me and my SO talk about phones occasionally, regarding our kids. Neither of them are anywhere close to an age where they might have one. However, as time goes on, we find ourselves so repelled by the idea of the kids having a fully fledged smartphone.
Given the reality that all social media apps are effectively skinner boxes, training you to use them more, the idea of allowing kids on them feels like offering a 10-year-old a cigarette. I have to remind myself that the internet I grew up on is dead and gone. I may have been exposed to some weird ass shit in AOL chat rooms, but there wasn't any kind of algorithmic content feed keeping me itching and scratching.
So far, the only time the oldest uses an iPad is when they use mine, and the only apps they use are Procreate for drawing, and an app that helps kids learn to write letters and words. Watching TV is probably the worst thing we get into at home when it comes to just pure content consumption, but we keep the list of watchable stuff pretty small, and regularly axe shows we feel don't meet our standards when we venture off that list.
I guess this has evolved into a larger discussion about media consumption as I have typed this out, but at the end of the day, that's what's happening on these phones, right?
I mean, I've seen stories of white families running into this issue. The racial factor is obviously a lot stronger, but there is a general vibe of "the world is unsafe, and you should NEVER let your kid outside by themselves" and people have had DCF called on them for letting their kid, for example, play at a park across the street from the house.
It happens, and it's certainly cause for concern, but having child services called because your kids were outside unsupervized is extremely rare. Those cases make the news because they're shocking and dramatic for millenial parents who remember a time when it would have been unthinkable.