First device and first smartphone
When your child gets their first phone and what kind, from a smartwatch or basic phone to a full smartphone.
What age should a child get a first phone?
In short: Parents choose between 4 main approaches: Around 10 or earlier (the current norm); End of 8th grade (Wait Until 8th); High school, about 14 (Haidt); 16 or later; smartwatch or basic phone as stepping stones. Evidence: experts disagree. Credible bodies or researchers disagree — decide whose guidance you'll weigh. Best settled: tween.
- Evidence
- Experts disagree
- Best settled
- Tween
- Part of
- Learning & the wider world
First device and first smartphone: what are the options?
Parents usually land on one of these 4 approaches.
1. Around 10 or earlier (the current norm)
The child gets a smartphone at about ten or younger, which is common now.
2. End of 8th grade (Wait Until 8th)
The child waits until after eighth grade, as the Wait Until 8th pledge asks.
3. High school, about 14 (Haidt)
The child waits until high school, about fourteen, as Jonathan Haidt recommends.
4. 16 or later; smartwatch or basic phone as stepping stones
The child waits until sixteen or older, with a watch or a calls-and-texts phone before then.
First device and first smartphone: what does the evidence say?
Experts disagree. Credible bodies or researchers disagree — decide whose guidance you'll weigh.
About 6 in 10 US 11-12-year-olds have a smartphone; Oster rates the data quality as very poor but leans negative for teen girls
Sources
What else is worth knowing?
A smartphone gives a child the whole internet and social apps in their pocket. Groups such as Wait Until 8th encourage families to delay together. Watches and basic phones allow calls and texts without the rest.
Questions to ask each other
- At what age and for what reason would our child get a phone?
- Would we start with a basic phone or a watch?
- What rules would come with it?
More in Screens, phones and digital life
- Posting the child's photos
- Parents' own phone use
- Screens before age 2
- Daily limits, ages 2-5
- How limits are set, ages 6-12
- Content, co-viewing and background TV
- Screens as a tool (meals, cars, restaurants, meltdowns)
- Personal tablet, YouTube and short video
- Video games: time, violence, online chat
- Parental controls and a family media plan
- Social media start age
- Acting alone or with other parents
- Phones in bedrooms and at school
- Monitoring messages and location
- AI companions and chatbots
- AI for schoolwork
- Online safety, sexting and pornography
First published 2026-10-03. Last updated 2026-10-05. General information, not medical advice.