Kids and phones

“There's no point hanging out with my friends, they all just stare at their phones”.

These were the words of my 11 year old son after he had his friend over for the afternoon today.

The friend stared at his phone for basically the whole 5 hours he was here. There was YouTube when they kicked the football, tiktok while they threw the Frisbee. They went on the trampoline, the phone came too. They walked to the shop for sweets; the phone was always playing. The phone was in the foreground of the entire play date. I watched out the corner of my eye and I never saw the screen go black.

How utterly devastating.

My son wanted to play with his friend, he tried endless scenarios from football to the garden to the shop, we even went to McDonald's for tea as a treat, but the phone was propped up against a milkshake rolling through reels.

I made eye contact with my son a few times to check in with him and I saw sadness reflected back. The crushing realisation that his friend would rather stare down than talk to him.

I cut the play date shorter than i had originally intended because I could see there was no point continuing.

The phone had won. My son had lost.

After I dropped him home I asked my son if there was another friend he might like over instead, one who wasn't as glued to their phones? But he hung his head and told me “they are all like that. If it's not tiktok it's YouTube, that's all they do”.

I could see the relief in him when we got home and his teenage brother was sat on the front steps with an icelolly in hand instead of a phone. I knew he was sat there to wait for little bro to return, though he said it was for the ‘peace’.

Immediately the two of them started kicking a ball and then agreed to go for a walk. They looked at each other, spoke to each other, there was not a phone in sight.

I've been worried recently my sons have seemed distant from their friends. They haven't wanted to go out, or invite people round as much. But I get it now.

They don't have social media, they have 30 minutes phone time a day. What are they supposed to do when their friends are engrossed? Who will they play with, speak with, be with?

My son's spend a lot of time together, they are each others best friend. And I see now that part of that is because they are not competing for each others attention. They are not up against the phone, the scrolls, the reels. They are just with each other.

And that's what they want. What we all want isn't it? For someone to be truly present with you. Not half there and half on the internet.

I was heartbroken for my son today but also relieved, relieved because he has his brothers and sister and a whole family to experience life with.

His friends have their phones.

For anyone who has experienced this themselves, what do you do differently? What could I have done differently? I haven’t had this particular friend over before so i didn’t feel comfortable telling him to put the phone down. How can i possibly tell someone elses child to do that? I would love to hear from you if you have dealt with this before.