The Current - Parents are saying 'no' to smartphones for kids, here's why

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

Bringing back a landline, buying a flip phone, setting strict screen time limits. With growing research showing the harm associated with smartphone and social media use, parents are rethinking how they let their kids use devices. But is an all or nothing approach the answer?

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When 12-year-old Ashling Helmer wants to talk to her friends, she has to do it on the landline in her kitchen. Hello? That sound might be a familiar one to some of you of a certain vintage. You see, Aschling's mom won't allow her to get a smartphone. She is one of a growing number of parents reconsidering how and when to introduce smartphones or whether to introduce them at all. As families navigate the complicated world of smartphones and social media with their kids and the harms those devices can cause, some are returning to basic technology like the landline.

Some families are signing pledges to delay getting a phone for their kids until they're at least 14 years old. Others are banding together to create cell phone-free groups. The current, Amanda Grant, came across one of these parents in her Toronto neighborhood. Amanda, good morning. Good morning, Matt. Tell me about this parent. I was walking around her neighborhood, and I noticed these homemade flyers stapled to telephone poles saying, hold the phone, looking for parents who plan to hold off on giving their kids smartphones. So I got in touch.

Kate O'Connor put up the flyers. She's a mom to a two-year-old and got the idea to try to connect with other parents to talk about how to handle smartphones. And it started when she saw her own daughter drawn to the devices. When our child was 10 months old, I remember going out to the park with a friend. and she was like, oh, she's doing baby sign language. And I was like, no, no, we never, we didn't teach her any baby sign language. She's not doing it. She's like, no, she's definitely doing, like, look at her hands.

She's doing something with her hands. And she was going like this. She was texting. And she constantly, like, picks things up and we'll pretend to be talking on the phone. I think about what I want for her. And I know that just in this exact same way that she's learned to talk and learned to walk, She sees us on our phones all the time, and that's one of the reasons, in fact, why I thought about the posters in the first place was because I just, I can feel how addicting it is in my own life and every single person I see everywhere all the time, and I don't want that for her. So what is she hoping to accomplish with these posters?

Well, she says she's hoping to find other families who wants to delay getting their kids' phones, and she wants to create that community for her daughter with a similar stance now. So as she grows up, she won't feel left out. I met up with Kate at her sister Maggie's house in the east end of Toronto. Maggie has a 12-year-old daughter, Ashling, who you heard earlier. Maggie has decided to hold off on smartphones as well. I sat down with the three of them at the kitchen table, their dog excitedly pacing at our feet. It's kind of annoying when everyone is, like, doing like, oh, a TikTok dance or something. And I guess when some of my friends got their friends for a while,

they would just be on their phone, like, all the time. Ashling's in grade seven. She's just arrived home from school and has time for a quick snack before heading off to dance class. Her mom, Maggie, says she's a few years into navigating how social media and smartphones are being used with Aschling and her friends. She used to lend her daughter her phone

to get in touch with her friends. I got the landline to satisfy, like, her wanting a phone and me not wanting to share my phone anymore. So I was always like, give me my phone back. And also, this is like, the temptation is too much to start getting into the emojis on a call or the games on a call. Do you talk on the phone with your friends? Well, my friends sometimes, I mostly just use it, like, if I'm going to play on, like, oh, we should meet up or something, like, with my dad or with my friends or something. Or if I'm going to call, like, one of my friends that don't live in Toronto.

When you were boring your mom's phone, did you notice, like, how you felt when you were using it? Well, I don't know. It was pretty fun. to do like emojis and stuff. Do you miss using it? Um, not really. Because like sometimes my friends would just like start watching a video or something while we were on the call. And yeah, that was kind of boring.

So it sounds like at this point she's not too bothered by not having a phone. Yeah, I mean, I think she was saying she has a landline at home. She'll use that to make plans with her friends. She also has a school laptop. So email is still an option and she also uses Spotify. Maggie says it hasn't been as easy for some of her friends. She introduced me to Lindsay Matheson, who was a mom to four children, aged 15, 12, 10, and 3. She's a self-described anti-screen parent.

Growing up, the kids never had tablets, and she set stringent limits around TV time. But as they got older, the desire to get a phone became a regular topic of conversation. And so how did Lindsay handle that? Well, like Ashling, her daughter had access to a landline, but finding ways to talk to friends really became a sticking point. In grade six, she sent emails to friends, and I know in grade seven and eight she used email chat. We have a landline. We tried to encourage her to call her friends to make plans. She did.

She tried, but she just was so a gasp that I would suggest it. And that basically she joked with me that it was the equivalent of if I gave her a parchment and a quill, and she would write a letter to her friends and mail it off and hear back from them in a couple of words. week. So it just seemed like not a way kids these days communicate. And her daughter obviously is not a fan of this approach. No, she wanted a phone badly. And for months, her eldest would actually ask her for a phone every single day. So I think it was a lot to stay connected to her friends. She felt very left out. She never knew all the TikTok dances that were really popular in grade six. She didn't know a lot of the memes and stuff that people were talking about. And

definitely wanted to know more about them. I mean, I think you can imagine there are a lot of parents listening who would worry about this, in part because the phone is not just a device to talk to each other on, that it is about the venue where people make plans with each other, the venues where people learn about shared culture together. Were there other things in terms of not having a smartphone for her daughter that post a challenge? Yeah, I think to your point, even anecdotally, when I talk to lots of parents, that comes up. I don't want my kid to feel left out. What if I need to get in touch with them because they're not home when they're expected?

Lindsay says it hasn't been easy in a world that's increasingly reliant on technology. This year, my daughter's high school said that they were going to do digital student cards that you upload to your smartphone. So I just let the guidance counselor know that she doesn't have a smartphone and is there any way that she could get a physical student card? They have a workaround for that for now. I don't know how long that will last. I try to channel my 90s self and see what we would have done then. So teaching my daughter before she had her phone if she was making plans with friends to say, like, I'll meet you between this time and this time.

And if I'm delayed, then like, let's meet here. But regardless of what Lindsay told her children, the smartphone conversation continued and it led to some real tension. But she did hold her ground. So what has not having a smartphone meant for how her kids spend their time? I mean, that was the whole point of this, right? You don't want them just to be looking at the phone all the time. Exactly.

Lindsay says without devices, her kids spent a lot more time developing hobbies and being creative. It hasn't been a smooth ride, though. Her 15-year-old spent years hounding her for a phone and with schools providing laptops to students in many regions. The kids still had their own computer to access the internet. And that came with a set of challenges. Lindsay says she just wasn't prepared for. Our kids all love music, which is wonderful. We use the really popular app at home on our phones, Spotify.

and I just found out, and probably teens listening to this would think I'm ridiculous, but that a lot of people upload YouTube videos, TikTok videos, to Spotify as podcasts. And so if your kid has Spotify, they can watch the same kinds of things that they'd be watching endlessly. And I had no idea. It just feels like everything's being made very easy to get to our kids. And I'm, yeah, I'm so disillusioned sometimes with the amount that I'm trying to, what I view is keep my kids safe and just how hard it is to actually do that. Like, sometimes I'm pretty close to saying that's it.

Like, no more screens. We're done. We're going to move somewhere where there's no Wi-Fi signal and we're going to go off grid because it just feels like a losing battle every single day. She sounds frustrated. Yeah, I think she's really frustrated. She says it will continue to be a difficult path to now. navigate, right? She has this oldest daughter who's 15. She also has a 12-year-old, a 10-year-old, and a three-year-old. And she kind of hopes that by the time her three-year-old is in this same

stage, there's more regulation of smartphones and social media. So she doesn't have to feel like it all comes down to her as a parent to set boundaries and make these hard choices. What about the 15-year-old? I mean, did she ever get a phone? Yeah, they were able to hold off until the end of grade nine. But as the school year came to a close, they decided to get her a phone. We found this phone called a pinwheel. a regular phone, like a regular looking phone that has this platform or an operating system over top of it. And so you as the parent can put certain things on it, but the kid can't. So when we told her we were thinking about this phone that would only be able to text or call

friends, she was very excited and happy. And when she finally got it at the end of grade nine, her friends basically threw a party for her because they were just so excited that she finally got a phone. That's really interesting. In a moment, we're going to hear from another teen who has unfettered access, as opposed to her phone and why that motivated her to set her own boundaries

when it comes to these devices. But go back to, we started with Kate O'Connor, the mom who put up those posters looking for playmates for her two-year-old. How has hearing from parents with older kids like her sister changed the way that she thinks about this, or has that changed? I think that's been the biggest benefit for Kate. She says seeing her sister and Ashling navigate this has been like a permission slip for her.

She'd often worried about the safety factor, wanting her child to have a phone so they as parents can get in touch. But like Lindsay and Maggie both told me, without phones, they've had to build more trust and independence with their kids. Still, Kate says she understands this doesn't feel like an option for lots of families. And it's hard to know now how she'll handle it when her daughter is a teen. All right. Amanda, thank you very much. Thank you. DeGrant as a producer here on The Current. Listen to this paid content by Beneva, now on CBC Listen.

There are many factors that need to be considered in business. Experience and information can help you make informed decisions. Join host Catherine Duranso and her guests as they deep dive into the world of insurance and financial products. From claim prevention, consumer psychology, and organizational health, each episode gives you real-life examples and practical advice. Tune in to Beneva's brand new Ask the Experts podcast to learn more. Look, it's hard being the pop culture friend. You're the one who knows exactly what new show

is the most watched show on Netflix right now or you're on top of the film festival calendar. Whether you are that friend or you desperately need a friend like that, allow commotion to enter your group chat. It's a podcast hosted by me, Alameen Abdul-Mahmoud, where I talk to people about the arts and entertainment stories that you need to know, and we share all the recommendations of what you should be reading

or watching or listening to. Find commotion wherever you get your podcasts. Maddie Freeman has spent a lot of time thinking and talking about smartphones and our relationship with social media. She is the founder of NoSo, an advocacy group that promotes educating kids about social media. She's also working with McGill University in Montreal to develop courses for high school students here in Canada. Maddie, good morning. Good morning. How are you? I'm well. What do you make of what we just heard how those families are trying to navigate this world? And, and there's...

are actually holding off on introducing smartphones for their kids. Yeah, it was really interesting. I mean, this is something I think about a lot from kind of the parent angle of what to do in this increasingly digital world and how the decisions you make for your kid can have consequences for their social lives. Like, it's definitely, it's a tough road to navigate that I have not experienced yet. How do you think people of your generation would feel if they were told, you know what, to get in touch with your friends, you need to call them on the landline?

I mean, I think young people hate restriction. and being told what to do, and if they're told what to do, they'll always find a way around it. I mean, what's crazy, though, is I wish when I was in middle school and high school that I was not on my smartphone. But in the moment, if you asked me, I would have been like, no, like, I want my phone. I want to be on it 24-7. So it's hard to, yeah, figure out. What was it like when you first got a smartphone? Oh, my gosh. I mean, I was 12 years old, and I was just so excited. It was such a fun kind of toy to tinker around with. And right around that same time as when social media was kind of being

widely released to the public. So I was spending quite a bit of time on apps like Instagram and Snapchat. And I was really obsessed with it. I didn't understand that it could harm me in any way. And my parents didn't know either at the time because it was just kind of this cool place where you could see what your friends were doing. But it slowly kind of started to creep into my life in more and more ways that became unhealthy and definitely impacted my well-being. That again, looking back on, I kind of wish I spent a lot less time on my phone. How much time do you think you spent on it? Through, like, my teen years, I was spending between eight and ten hours a day.

I would say about 90% of that time being on social media. And as you said, I mean, it had impacts on you, negative impacts on you. What did it do to you? All the things. I mean, I felt very insecure about my body and the way I looked. I was comparing myself to Photoshopped models and other people who were, you know, always on vacation and bikinis and stuff like that. And I was being recommended like thigh gap and weight loss challenges as a 12-year-old kid.

I was being shown harmful content, like self-harm content that was really triggering because I was going through severe depression when I was a teen. I think the biggest noticeable thing that was, I mean, all my time was going to these platforms. I couldn't focus in school. I couldn't channel that much time into other activities. I was a volleyball player. And so that was kind of the one time in my day that I didn't have access to my phone. But outside of that, I would stay up really late scrolling on my phone and tweeting and posting.

And I just feel like that did irreversible damage to me that at the time I didn't even realize what's going on. Irreversible damage. Honestly, yeah. I mean, I still, to this day, I mean, I lead this nonprofit that empowers people to voluntarily log off of social media for a month. And I'm still struggling with it. I've kind of slowly taken myself permanently off platforms, but I still have a very addictive relationship to these platforms. and I notice the harms. I'm more aware of them now.

And so I see every day how I feel like that's still affected me. And, you know, mental health has been a big struggle throughout my life. It's impacted me in my community a lot. So definitely, I mean, I think it does feel irreversible. I mean, even if you're trying to log off, I mean, it's still a presence. One of the things we heard is that young people feel like they're missing out. And you hinted at this as well because it's not just, you're not just calling somebody. This is where communication happens and where culture lives in many ways.

ways. And it's hard to remove yourself from that. 100%. I mean, social media companies realize that human beings really deeply care about their social ties. And if they could tap into that meaningfully and make it feel as though if you weren't on social media, you're going to miss out. No one loves you. You're not talking to anyone in any other way. Then you're going to feel horrible. And so that's kind of why I like to think about it in the way that if we can all join together and all kind of come together and decide to make better relationships with these platforms or maybe even get off of them, we can all be happier because we can communicate.

We can do phone calls. Like a lot of the, you know, young people that we heard from earlier have found other ways to communicate with their friends and family. And I think that's kind of central to the mission of this whole movement is just that like it does feel really isolating if you're not on social media, but you can really forge other pathways to spend real authentic, meaningful time with the people you care about in person or through other avenues. Stay with us because I want to bring another voice into this conversation.

It's Isabella Wen, who is in grade 12. She's one of NOSO's youth leaders in Vancouver. She's also, and this is really interesting, on TikTok's Youth Council. Isabella, good morning to you. Good morning, Matt. Thank you for having me. You got a smartphone, what, when you were 10 years old? Yes, 10 years old, very young.

What was that like? Honestly, at first, it was very addicting for sure. I didn't know how to handle it. I didn't know my digital skills, my digital advocacy. it wasn't there at that time. So I definitely found it very difficult to stay off of it. I was using it late into the night, definitely not in a healthy way. I said in the introduction that you had unfettered access, but then decided to put limits

on yourself. Tell me a little bit about that. Why did you start to wean yourself off of this technology that, as you said, was addictive? Yeah, definitely. I think when I first got it, I wasn't prepared for how addicting phones and screens, how addicting social media can be as well. I was on it all the time, scrolling late into the night, and I definitely festered a lot of social comparison and a lot of unhealthy habits that I wasn't ready to handle. So I think, you know, at first, the very extreme response was put your phone in a cookie box

and then lock it up and put on a timer. And it got to that kind of extreme. But eventually, I was able to, with the support from family and friends, to be able to put on limits and ensure that I was able to use my phone in a productive way because screens are here to stay. How much do you use her phone now? How has that changed? So I think now I use it only two hours a day and I definitely use it more for my advocacy work with no-so and my other digital advocacy work as well. Do you feel like you're missing out on anything by not being on the phone for seven hours or eight hours a day? I think absolutely there's still that feeling. I think being in high school right now in this

increasingly digitized world, like Maddie was saying, it can be very difficult to see everyone in the know about the newest news with the newest pop star. But I think also recognizing that being present is very difficult when we're on our screens for that much time. And I think spreading that awareness to other teens as well. Maddie, there has been a lot of pressure on the companies that create these apps and get them into our phones to do something about what people are seeing. And earlier this month after a lot of that pressure, Meta announced that it would introduce PG-13 content filters on Instagram for teen accounts. It would block posts containing strong language and dangerous stunts and things that could

encourage harmful behavior from the kids who are addicted to this technology. Do you think that's going to be effective? That's a really good question. I think it's really difficult to say. I mean, I have seen a report already that a lot of the kind of teen account features that Meta had announced are deemed ineffective. And I think I usually don't have much faith. and the tech companies kind of regulating themselves

because they have a direct incentive not to. They've said themselves that young people are their most profitable audience because we're ripe to spend our entire lifetime buying and purchasing off of ads, off of meta, and scrolling for long periods of time. They're incentivized as a company to make their platforms as addictive as possible and honestly as harmful as possible. And so I think a lot of these kind of teen account fixes

are really just band-aids. and don't get to the root of the issue. And that's something that I always kind of struggle with. I do think it's a step in the right direction. But, again, with the reports coming out already that a lot of these features are ineffective, it's hard to have hope that this is going to, you know, solve the issue of, you know, the harm that young people see when they log on to social media platforms. Isabella, you're on the Youth Council for TikTok, which is one of the most addictive social media apps out there.

What do you hope to accomplish in that role? I mean, I hope to definitely spread. more user education. I think social media and phones can be a beautiful thing. And never before could a Canadian youth connect with a youth from around the world with such ease. And social media can be such a catalyst for building that sense of collectiveness as well. So I definitely want to see those movements continue, but also for more youth to have digital literacy education. I'm a big advocate for embedding digital literacy in K-12 curriculum. And I hope that in Canada especially, we can have more digital literacy and advocacy about phone use and social media awareness at a young age.

Do you really think that TikTok is interested in people advising them on how their platform can be less dangerous and less addictive? The whole point of it is to keep people engaged. There's an enormous, I mean, unimaginable amounts of money that are at stake here. And that platforms, to Maddie's point, are designed to keep people attached. The algorithm is designed to shape your behavior. Do you think that TikTok is interested and receptive to your input? I was definitely very, very skeptical at first, very aware of tokenism and youth councils. And I definitely was scared that that would be the case. But I think after working with them for around a year, I've seen that they are truly taking our input and putting it to use immediately.

And they're definitely being very receptive and truly listening to youth voices. And I haven't seen a big tech platform do this before. Maddie, you are much more skeptical of that. And I just wonder, for parents who might share your skepticism, they don't think that we broadly can trust these tech firms to regulate themselves because, as I said, their whole business is to keep you on the platform. Where should that responsibility lie, do you think? I still do think it's in the responsibility of the tech companies

to make sure that they're not harming users. I mean, when companies release products to the world, they have a lot of stringent rules to follow when it's a physical product. And it seems that big tech companies are continuing to operate in this wild west where there really isn't much grounds for change. You know, I think it's multifaceted. I definitely think that legislation plays a huge role. And if only we could move faster and collectively agree to pass legislation to meaningfully regulate the way these companies are operating, that would be incredible. Obviously, I wish that these tech companies would see that they're really harming people and make changes.

But at the end of the day, they're not going to because of the insane profit incentive. that they have. I do think that a lot of blame tends to be shifted onto the user, onto this student or onto the parent. And that's kind of what I try to avoid in my work is it's not your fault. You know, you're interfacing with a technology that's built by engineers that are 10 times smarter than you are. That's backed by an algorithm that's 100 times smarter than you are. And you're never going to win that race. And so I feel that if we can try to reclaim some of our attention and, you know, slowly forge healthier habits, that's a win. And end with what you just said, though, about There are young people who they know what's happening.

They know that they're being manipulated and they're trying to figure it a way out of that. You yourself, I mean, you were on the phone for hours and hours and hours and now have cut that way back. What would you want teens to know about how they could develop those healthy habits? It's really hard. I think it's different for everyone. I mean, my kind of biggest call to action is always to try to live a life without it temporarily just to see what happens. like whether it's one day, one week, or one month, and just see what your life could be like if you don't have this technology constantly bugging you and trying to reel you in, steal your attention,

steal your time, and see what other hobbies you engage in, see what people you talk to if you don't have access to like Snapchat to communicate. And that experiment can really deepen your self-awareness of how these platforms are affecting you, how they're impacting your mental health, and what other kind of ways you could live your life if you had a more balanced relationship. Isabella, what would you say just finally to teens who are trying to figure out those healthy habits? What advice would you give them? Like Maddie said, first of all, it's not your fault.

Digital literacy skills are a foundation and we are not catching up to where our world is increasingly digitizing. I think that one advice from me would be to tell your friends and tell your family that you're trying to do this, tell your teachers, having those support systems to keep you accountable can really help in this world where we're constantly getting FOMO and constantly feeling like we're missing out. Thank you both for talking to us about what you're trying to do and how this technology has shaped your life for good and for bad. Thank you very much. Thank you. Maddie Freeman is the founder of NoSo.

It's an organization advocating for media digital literacy. Isabella Wen is a grade 12 student in Vancouver and a member of TikTok's Youth Council. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.