My Kid Was Smarter Before His Smart Phone

Are smart phones making our kids dumb?

That's what I've been wondering ever since my 12-year-old saved up his money for the do-it-yourself lobotomy known as the iPod Touch. (Yes, I know it's not actually a phone. Same point.) This is a boy who used to pick up whatever book I was reading and read it faster. "Now what do you like to do?" I asked.

"Well," he smiled. "I like to listen to funny sounds."

"Funny?"

"You know — farts."

Actually, I'm a grown-up. I did not know.

"And I like to play games," he went on. There's the one with bouncing cows. And another one called "iShoot."

Sigh.

When he's not shooting, bovine bouncing or pretending to pass gas (as if he doesn't have enough of his own), he's sending his friends pictures of cats with captions such as, "You eated my cookie?" Somehow these make me laugh, too. But "The Iliad" they're not. Archie and Veronica they're even not.

My boy's transformation from bookworm to browser has been so swift and so complete that I just had to ask some of the folks who study kid marketing: Is he an isolated case?

Turns out he's as demographically pure as a 1969 hippie.

"The iPhone/smart phone is the new tween-teen killer app," says digital marketing guru Rodney Mason. By "app," of course, he means "application" — a little game or doodad you can download. "It's the remote control for the next generation because in one single device, they play games and text; do Facebook and MySpace; Tweet on Twitter; surf the Web; watch movies and TV shows, like 'The Office'; and oh, yeah, occasionally listen to music and actually talk on it, which is now at the bottom of their list."

Mason had to threaten his own 14-year-old with turning off her iPhone if she didn't turn on her voice mail, which, reluctantly, she did.

The smart phone is the perfect activity/toy/drug for tweens and teens, who are, as they always have been, so painfully self-conscious it's hard for them to just hang out. Send someone a captioned cat or funny noise and you've got a way to connect without the awkwardness of actually coming up with something to say — or even having to say it. (Or even having to make the noise.) And when two or more tweens somehow do find themselves in the same room, they can whip out their phones and look down — no need to chat. I've seen it happen even with same-sex buddies.

We think of phones as communication tools, but the truth is they may be just the opposite. Already, 50 percent of 9- to 11-year-olds have their own cells, says George Carey, president of Just Kid Inc., a company that studies children's habits. "They roll out of bed, and you can't talk to them or get them to focus when they come home. The kids are bleary."

And naturally, it's starting ever earlier, says Allison Ellis, a teen-trend watcher. "Parents are handing over their iPhone in the grocery line or car and letting their toddler play with these things." Just like their older siblings, the tykes find certain games, noises and ring tones addicting.

Er, engaging.

The whole thing has gotten so disturbing that the other night, my husband and I declared: No iPhone from 7-9 p.m.

All went well Night No. 1. It was novel. Fun. At 7:15 on Night No. 2, we found our son huddled over his phone like a heroin addict. (Yes, we took it away.)

If you're a parent wondering what happened to your child who was just about to burst into the world but got sucked into a smart phone instead, this may be the time to invent a killer app of your own: the unpaid phone bill.

Lenore Skenazy is a columnist at Advertising Age. She is the founder of FreeRangeKids.com. To find out more about Lenore Skenazy (lskenazy@yahoo.com) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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