Should I Be Worried About My Daughter's Pretend Smartphone?

My daughter picks up her iPhone for the 10th time of the day, opens Snapchat and immediately starts taking selfies, making silly faces. The device slides effortlessly between her hands, and she makes a pouty smile as she extends it an arm's length from her face. Then she loads a different video app and starts recording a vlog for her friends and followers online, telling them about her day and her new LEGO project.

I cringe as I watch from across the room. I wish she’d put it away and go outside.

Except none of it is real. The "iPhone" in her hand is actually a piece of brown cardboard from an Amazon delivery box cut into the shape of a smartphone. She’s meticulously drawn and coloured it to look like the home screen of a real phone, complete with apps like Spotify and Netflix, and a clock that perpetually reads 7:00. My daughter, who turned 10 in April, has jammed this piece of cardboard into an old iPhone case to complete the setup.

Her younger sister, who turned seven earlier this year, has also made a version of a cardboard phone. Their interest in the “devices” waxes and wanes seemingly at random. They can often go weeks without picking them up or playing with them, but other times they are seemingly obsessed with them.

My family's screen time rules

Real smartphones are a non-negotiable, restricted item in our household for our kids. They have been told they won’t be getting them until they’re at least in high school, and even then, they’ll likely be getting the “dumb” variety that can only make calls or send texts so they can stay in touch with friends and family. Screen restrictions aren’t new in our household, either. Aside from the ban on phones, the girls are limited to just 20 minutes per day of game time on our one family iPad.

But for some reason, the cardboard phones still bug me, and I’m not sure why. Maybe I fear that we’re starting to normalize the technology at too young an age?

Aside from their 20 minutes per day on the iPad, they have relatively free access to television. We subscribe to many of the most popular streaming services (Netflix and Disney+ are probably the most popular in our household), and instead of strictly tracking TV time like we do with the iPad, we rely on the time-honoured parenting tradition of saying “I think you’ve had enough TV for today, go outside and play.”

We also have a “no YouTube” policy in the house and have deleted the app from our iPad and smart TV, though we do allow the girls to watch clips of America’s Got Talent while we’re in the room.

But are we being too authoritarian? Tech tyrants in my own home? I know their "phone" is just a piece of cardboard, not aluminum and glass. And I know the only thing it's connected to is my daughter's imagination, not the WiFi. But I still cringe at the idea they need a phone, real or imagined, to occupy their time.

Official screen time guidelines

A 2022 Media Technology Monitor report highlights the prevalence of cell phone ownership and usage among Canadian children, with 40 percent of those under 17 owning a phone and usage extending even to preschoolers. This trend contrasts sharply with Health Canada's guidelines, which advise no screen time for children under two and a maximum of one hour for those aged two to five, citing risks of obesity, sleep deprivation, and developmental issues.

However, the Canadian Pediatric Society reports that nearly all Canadian children are exposed to screens by age two, and only a small fraction of preschoolers adhere to the recommended one-hour limit.

A 2020 report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) examined the effects of excessive screen time and social media use on developing brains, particularly in girls, and found:

• Evidence implicates smartphone and social media use in the increase in mental distress, self-injury and suicidality among youth, and the effects appear to be greatest among girls.
• Social media can affect how kids view themselves and their interpersonal relationships through social comparison and negative interactions, including cyberbullying and the normalization or even promotion of self-harm and suicidality among youth.
• High proportions of youth engage in heavy smartphone use and media multitasking, which can result in chronic sleep deprivation and have negative effects on cognitive control, academic performance and socioemotional functioning.

Last March, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt published his best-selling book The Anxious Generation, which investigates the health effects of tech on our children, and he came to many of the same conclusions as the CMAJ report.

Other recent investigations into the social and cultural impact of screens include MSNBC journalist Chris Hayes’ recent book The Siren’s Call, which examines how our attention has been commoditized by big tech firms. And the February cover story for The Atlantic magazine looks at how the 21st century is quickly becoming the anti-social century as we eschew church, social clubs, and even in-person dining in favour of the isolation provided by our phones, tablets or televisions.

The new rules of modern parenting

Raising kids in this environment is unlike anything our parents or grandparents faced. And I find myself constantly second-guessing whether we’re being too strict, or not strict enough. Is three hours of cartoons on Netflix on a Saturday morning the same as the three hours I watched on network television when I was a kid? Are their cardboard “phones” just harmless toys akin to the cardboard boxes of my childhood that I sat inside and pretended to fly to the moon?

“I don’t think you need to be worried,” said Alison Yeung, a family doctor in Kitchener, Ontario, with more than 1,200 patients, when I asked her about the cardboard phones. Yeung has seen the growing trend of mental health concerns that come with increased screen time, and is working to raise awareness about screens and social media through her Instagram and Substack accounts called The Smartphone Effect. She said the solid foundation of limiting access to screens means there probably isn’t anything to be worried about. “It sounds like your daughters are just imitating what they are seeing around the house. And I think that’s very normal and appropriate and cute.”

Will our girls resent us in the future for being so restrictive now? Or will they end up thanking us for intervening during these critical years and helping to guide them toward a more productive path with technology? I can only hope it’s the latter.

Practical screentime strategies

So what are parents to do? We’re told to limit screen time and to get our kids outside more, but that’s easier said than done—especially if it feels like we’re the only parent in our neighbourhood willing or able to deny our child’s desire for screens.

In The Anxious Generation, Haidt offers some suggestions, including:

• Limiting screen time to just a few hours every week for kids over the age of two.
• Turning off screens during family meals or outings.
• Learning to use parental controls.
• Avoiding using screens as “pacifiers” or to stop tantrums.
• Removing screens from the bedroom an hour before bedtime.

And for parents who are thinking of trying to rein in screen time use? Yeung said it will be difficult, especially for older kids and teens, but it’s worth having an honest conversation about the kinds of negative impacts screens can have.

“Just sitting down and admitting that you made a mistake and saying ‘it's my job to protect you. I feel like I haven't done a good job of protecting you, and I would like to change some things in our house.’”

That could start with no phones or screens at the dinner table or bedtime, but it also requires parents to check their own phone usage and screen time, Yeung added. “A lot of times when we're talking about a kid's screen time and how it may be affecting them, the kids will speak up right away and say, ‘well, you're on your phone just as much as I am, or more,’ and they’re generally not wrong.”