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The scary thing is that that doesn't even sound that unusual to me!

My husband sent me this article. It is frightening. We are going to do our best to teach verbal communication and how important it is to our daughter. The whole phone thing scares me. I don't know when she will get one but it certainly won't be anytime soon.

ETA: Oh and we will monitor her usage, this girl sounds a bit out of control. Our daughter will not have access to her phone after bedtime. Those hours she said she was up until texting? No. Sorry. You will find other, better quality friends if your friends are going to exclude you b/c you can't chat with them on your phone.

that was scary to read. im sorry but i would be SO dissapointed if my kid turned out to be like that, mean i know. but the phone is the center of your universe, you exclude people who dont have iphones... sad to see. you base popularity on how many likes you get. i know these kids are young but cant we expect better out of them?!?!

So crazy. My little cousin (11 years old) has an iPhone. He has had some sort of phone since he was 8 (usually a smartphone). He has absolutely no restrictions on what he can do on it. He is OBSESSED. He lives next door to my mom, so he's over there a lot and as soon as I walk in the door, he's shoving his phone in my face showing me some new app, song, picture, etc.

The sad thing is that he's been held back twice, so he'll be turning 12 in the 4th grade next year. His parents blame it on the school, his teachers, etc, yet they let him play on the phone ALL THE TIME. He seriously wanted to bring it into our grandfather's funeral in April and I almost went off. If you try to bring up school, he says "I dont talk about school." My sister and I are both teachers, so we could help him, but he refuses (and his parents let him do whatever he wants). He's obsessed with technology to the point that it makes me mad to be around him, which is sad. I'm scared to think about what he will be like in a few years.

@ladyfingers: ya it does seem like she knows its crazy but is addicted to it anyways... I think too, its just SO normal to see EVERYONE (parents, peers) on their phones all the time so maybe it becomes second nature to people.

Wow! That shocked me. Leaving your friends out because they don't have an iPhone? Really?! Competition for who gets the most likes? Sad.

If this had been the case when I was 14 (not that long ago, I'm young) I would have had no friends! Lol. My dad told me if I wanted a phone I could buy it myself. I was the only person in my group of friends with no cell, I lived.

My SO and I agree our children will not get their own cell or computer (possibly a tv too, depends) until they're much older. And we will limit their useage and pay attention to what they're doing.

@ladyfingers: Really though I thought this was going to be about things like sexting & the graphic/vulgar things that accessible to our youth on their phones! Cue age 13 parental restriction settings...

Yeah, I started seeing this two years ago when I was volunteering with HS freshmen. I was surprised. I think the sad thing that PPs mentioned is that this exclusion kinda thing is always around but now it's so accessible. I hope to instill in my daughter that likes on photos don't mean anything, but its hard. My friend has a 13 yo step daughter and she's navigating this now. Way different than when we were kids!

Wow, that is a crazy amount of dependency on social media! It's funny though, because I can see the obvious differences between my middle school years and her life, but also the similarities. We didnt have group chats on iphones (i didnt even have a cell phone til I was 15 or 16), but we had notebooks that we'd write messages in to each other, and pass around through our group of friends. We also used AIM religiously! I didn't have a tumblr, but I had a Geocities webpage, haha. I graduated HS in 2003, just to give a frame of reference.

I think the big red flag is the way that popularity and social interactions are guiding their activities on these sites. Facebook "likes" as a way to boost self esteem is just sad, and I can't think of anything that compares in my childhood. I always said I'm glad that Facebook wasn't around when I was in middle school and high school! Hopefully it will be long gone by the time our LO enters school... though I'm sure something equally as popular/annoying will emerge in the coming years.

@runsyellowlites: Wow, good point! The yearbook thing especially, since I never played sports

@TheSwissWifeStyle: I know crazy!!

I didn't get a cell phone until I started working. I see kids with cell phones and it scares the heck ou