[canyonero]

Giving children and teens unfettered access to social media and the internet seems to be more of a problem to me than any particular piece of hardware. The cell phone I had access to as a teen was a flip phone from Virgin Mobile that ran on "minutes". There was no web browser, no apps. I used it for texting and calling.

It's up to parents to control access to the content (unfortunately, the tools and hardware that exist for this sucks, which is unfortunate). So if you're dropping an unlocked iphone into your kids lap and walking away, well then maybe you're putting them at risk and neglecting them (which might be further causing mental health issues.)

My daughter is young now, but I will eventually run into this as she gets older. I've thought about this issue and I plan to lock down the content (either via software or targeted hardware) until she's an adult.

[civeng]

Check out the thelightphone dot com, they have already done an incredible job doing that for you.

[canyonero]

Oh cool. This is definitely something I'd consider if it's still around by the time she reaches an appropriate age. Thanks for sharing!