Already, many smart phones have restriction menus that allow parents to block certain phone functions, or mature content. Cell phone providers have services that allow parents to see a log of their children’s texts. And there are a growing number of smart phone applications that at least claim to give parents some level of control on a phone’s web browser, though many tech experts agree that these applications can be hit-or-miss.
Despite the ability to monitor some phone activity, some tech and communication experts question whether surveillance, alone, is the best response to the trend.
Some parents take a hard line on limits. Others, not so much, says Mary Madden, a senior researcher at Pew who co-authored the report.
“It seems like there are two extremes. The parents who are really locking down and monitoring everything—or the ones who are throwing up their hands and saying, ‘I’m so overwhelmed,'” Madden says.
She says past research also has found that many parents hesitate to confiscate phones as punishment because they want their kids to stay in contact with them.
“Adults are still trying to work out the appropriate rules for themselves, let alone their children,” Madden says. “It’s a difficult time to be a parent.”
And a seemingly difficult time for them to say “no” to a phone, even for kids in elementary school, where the high-tech bling has become a status symbol.
Sherry Budziak, a mom in Vernon Hills, Ill., says her 6-year-old daughter has friends her age who are texting by using applications on the iPod Touch, a media player that has no phone but that has internet access.
She draws the line there. But she did get her 11-year-old daughter an older model iPhone last fall, so she can stay in touch with her. Budziak, who works in the tech field and understands the ins and outs of the phone, set it so that the sixth-grader can text, make and receive phone calls, and play games that her parents download for her.
“So we’re on the conservative side, by far,” she says.
Budziak also tells her daughter and her daughter’s friends that it’s Mom’s phone, not her daughter’s. It means that she and her husband monitor texts on the phone any time they like.
Does their daughter protest about all the restrictions? Occasionally.
“But she wants a phone so badly that it doesn’t matter right now,” Budziak says. “Having a phone was better than having no phone at all.”
Mark Tremayne, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Texas at Arlington, says he and his wife put off getting their son a smart phone longer than most—until his 13th birthday, which is quickly approaching. They plan to monitor it, having already discovered a few “surprises” when checking the web surfing history on his iPod Touch.
On one hand, Tremayne says it’s the sort of stuff he used to look up in books and magazines when he was 13.
“It’s pretty clear that kids will do what kids will do,” he says. But he acknowledges that having a mobile device can make it that much easier to access.
The key, he says, is to talk to his son about it, and that’s what many other tech and communication experts also advise.
“I don’t think the technology itself is bad. The benefits vastly outweigh the risks. But parents do need to be aware,” says Daniel Castro, a senior analyst with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a research and education think tank based in Washington, D.C.
“Part of it is simply asking, ‘What are you doing, and why?'”
Too often, he and others say, adults don’t fully understand how the smart phones work—or how their kids might use them differently than they do.
That means guidance from parents, teachers, and other adults can be lacking, says Danah Boyd, a senior researcher at Microsoft Research who specializes in teens and their tech-driven communication.
- New research challenges fears about AI in the classroom - February 5, 2026
- How the FY25 funding freeze impacts students across America - July 24, 2025
- ‘Buyer’s remorse’ dogging Common Core rollout - October 30, 2014