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?
Yeah, the cat has entirely escaped all conceivable bags at this point. Kids are going to have their lives fucked up by media, best you can do is give them weapons to fight back. I strongly advocate stealing as much decent media as possible and putting it on local storage for them. Old music, movies, anything you can get so they can watch shit without ads. Ask them what they want to see then pull the torrents and give it to them to engage with on their own level without being exposed to algos and adverts.
It's not too bad on streaming services yet, though it's coming. I have attempted to do just this btw, but kids content is amazingly hard to find seeds for. If I were a better person with more time on my hands I would find a way to rip it and seed it myself. But atm I'm nowhere near equipped for that. My box has been down for a month after a power outage and I haven't even had the time to debug it
Get a good Bluray/DVD drive and hit up your local library or RedBox and just start ripping that shit yourself. Most of the stuff from the library is in pretty good condition. Your results may vary, depending on the library in your area.