Board:   [fsxNet] fsx General
Subject: Quitting the smartphone
From:    Arelor(21:2/138)
Date:    Tue Aug 25, 2026 10:27

  Re: Quitting the smartphone
  By: deon to Peter London on Sun Aug 16 2026 05:01 pm

 >
 > So I have two teenage kids, and they can complain all they like (they dont
 > so much anymore), but the phone is for my benefit not theirs. Because of
 > busy extra curricular activites, I have two low cost phone services, that
 > they take with them to so I know where they are, and they can call home if
 > they need to.

My mother gave me a phone "for her benefit" back in the day and it didn't work because I rarely carried it on me. In fact the presure I got for carrying it was absurd, but for me it felt like useless tech. I didn't have enough pockets back then (and I still don't) so if I had to chose whether to pick the phone or a folding blade, I would probably pick the folding blade.

In practice I didn't have real Internet until 2015 but I had full unrestricted access to computers since a young age. I don't know how viable that would be today but when I was a kid I would do my homework on a family computer using locally installed encyclopedias - then I would play videogames as long as I wanted as long as I had no pending tasks for the day remaining.

Granting full device access but no Internet access is something I see some people still do. For example, modern game consoles are Internet gateways that pose lots of risks for adults and kids alike, so if a parent feels they want to grant a console to their kids they opt for a retro console which requires no Internet. I understand the logic but I think the approach has its drawbacks.


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