Cellphones are this generation's cigarettes
At the end of the school year, my fifth grader informed me he was the only boy in his fifth-grade class without a cellphone; I wasn't sure if I should be proud or embarrassed by that fact.
Even without access to their phones during school, he mentioned a feeling of isolation. Their conversations usually revolve around what they watch and do on their phones.
At an early age, phones define this generation's identity, and anyone without one is an outsider.
Cellphone companies, service providers and social media giants took a page from Big Tobacco's playbook: Get them while they're young, and you have them for life.
Around 2002, in my junior year, I "commandeered" my parents' Nokia 3310 cellphone, aka the brick.
Just because I had the phone doesn't mean I could use it; a text cost 10 cents each way, "non-peak" hours started at 9 p.m., and not many kids my age had one. It was more of a status symbol and used for "emergencies," like asking if I could stay out past curfew.
The main way I communicated with my friends was through AOL instant messenger or by calling the home phone, which was attached to the wall because the cordless was never charged or stuck between the couch cushions.
When college came, cellphones became more usable; you still had to keep it quick. It was a tool to convey where to meet so you could talk in person without going over your minutes.
It could only reach the numbers you memorized or tediously saved on the phone. Typing in last names took too long, so I had around five "Matts" on my phone.
All that is to say something we all know — the phones I grew up with are not the phones we have today.
It feels like every year, more and more kids at a younger and younger age are given access to a machine that has the potential to destroy their lives.
Growing up, if I said or did something stupid at school, it was contained within the people who saw or heard it. Rumors spread like ripple, but the further they went, the less strength they had.
That is not true today. Every kid with a cellphone carries a megaphone that enables them to broadcast or repeat whatever they want whenever they want to whoever they want.
If kids are anything like me, they are saying and doing some dumb stuff. I'm sure I would be mortified if my chat log from the AOL days were dug up.
Schools are attempting to crack down on phones, but the biggest pushback is from parents. I understand the practicality of a student having a phone, but it's not worth the cost.
Cyberbullying is up, attention spans are down, lunchrooms are full of kids with headphones watching TikTok, and teachers don't want to seem uncool by not allowing students on their phones when they have nothing to do.
I know we, as parents, are scared and concerned about reaching our children if something happens.
But we should ask our lawmakers and leaders to make our communities safer instead of relying on the free market to justify giving kids a product that only makes us feel a bit better, knowing this time it wasn't our loved one who was hurt.
With my son heading to middle school and my daughter following soon, I find myself at a crux: let them be one of the few without a phone or give in to pressure so they don't feel left out.
My life would be easier if I didn't have to decide. Just ban phones from school; even better, keep them out of children's hands altogether.
That would be easier because then I wouldn't have to accept that I'm the problem. I'm desperate to keep my children from the dangers of phones, but I'm setting a terrible example. I'm the addicted smoker telling my kids not to start smoking.
I won't allow them to have one, but I always use my phone around them.
At home, they already feel isolated from me. I've taught them that what's on my screen is more valuable than what's around me.
No wonder my son's friends only talk about what they see on their phones. That's really all my friends and I talk about, too.
This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: Cellphones are this generation's cigarettes