BES Parent Zoom about Smartphones and Social Media – April 2 @ 7pm

Posted on by

On Wednesday, April 2 from 7-8pm on Zoom, Principal Serino will bring together BES parents and caregivers to help create a “coalition of the willing” around this topic: parents who seek to cooperate to delay adoption of smartphones and social media for their kids.

All-Parent Zoom: Delaying Smartphone and Social Media Use Among the BES Community (Wednesday, April 2 at 7pm on Zoom)

Today, all parents of elementary- and middle-schoolers struggle with the same collective action problem. 

  • When should I get my child a smartphone? 
  • When will my child’s friends get a smartphone? 
  • Will my child feel left out without one or without social media? 
  • How can I best communicate with my child or know where they are as they become more independent without one?  

Let’s not struggle alone! Let’s heed the advice of former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, who has said, “One thing parents can do, but they have to do this together, is to make a decision that they are going to band together as a group and say, ‘we’re not going to allow our kids to use social media until 16 or 17 or 18.’”  

For our discussion, we will start from recommended “norms” drawn from the highly-acclaimed best-selling book The Anxious Generation: (1) no smartphones before high school and (2) no social media before age 16. And we’ll also cover what alternatives (like smart watches or non-internet-enabled phones) parents in our community use to keep in touch with their kids.

Today, we know that internet-enabled smartphones and social media apps commonly cause kids physical harm, emotional trauma, and expose them to dangerous threats like fentanyl-laced pills, predators, #deadlychallenges, and cybercriminals. “Extreme, inappropriate, and harmful content [is] easily and widely accessible by children and adolescents,” former U.S. Surgeon General Murthy wrote in his 2023 Health Advisory urging parents to delay the adoption of smartphones and social media for kids. And there is no data showing that any amount of social media use is safe for kids. 

During the Zoom, we will have a presentation from Jeremy Joseph, a BES parent who since 2021 has presented to more than 15 school groups in the area (entirely by word-of-mouth) on this topic, followed by a community discussion. 

Please direct any questions to Jeremy Joseph at jjoseph1@gmail.com.