As parents, educators, health experts, and teens themselves become increasingly concerned about kids and adolescents spending too much time on smartphones and social media, another alternative trend is emerging — some families are going back to landlines.
Caron Morse, a Maine parent of two who took the initiative in getting her kids a landline after her oldest asked for a smartphone, explained to Good Morning America, “I had always felt a little scared or sad for my kids to grow up right now, just with how fast technology was moving forward. I was trying to think of a way to pivot, slow down, and rethink how we’re raising them. And so it just dawned on me that we need to invest in a landline.”
Now, in Morse’s community in Maine, about 20 other families have set up landline phones so that their kids could find a way to communicate without it leading to excessive screen time. The kids are able to call each other (or their relatives) to chat or coordinate play dates. And, as one of the kids with a landline phone reported, “I like it because it doesn’t have any screen on it, so you can’t stay on it for too long.”
The benefits of landlines and voice-only phone calls
Some parents are getting landlines because they want their kids to have a reliable way to call in emergencies or keep in touch without having to get them a cellphone — or track down a parent’s mobile device that could be anywhere in the house.
Plus, voice calls give kids the opportunity to build their conversational skills and listening skills. On video calls, kids (and sometimes adults!) tend to get so distracted by what’s going on in the background, elsewhere on the screen, or what they look like that it can be hard to focus on the actual conversation. But on voice calls, they have to listen to what is being said, come up with topics to discuss, and wait for the other person to respond.
With landlines, kids also have the opportunity to learn etiquette such as answering the phone when you don’t know who’s on the other end, or asking to speak to someone else. Plus, having a landline in a common room of the house makes it easier for parents to be aware of kids’ phone activity.
The social and emotional benefits can be far reaching. Morse, the mom from Maine, shared that since her kids started using the landline phone, “communication skills have greatly increased, independence has greatly increased, responsibility has greatly increased, self-confidence has increased.”
Landlines can also be a solution for parents who are looking for ways to reduce their own screen time. One parent wrote in The Everymom that she was fed up with her own and her husband’s phone use, especially when she noticed how it negatively affected interactions with their kids. So she set up a landline service and found that it improved her mood, her conversations with friends, her ability to be present with her kids, and even her kids’ behavior.
Getting a landline or voice-only phone for your family
Traditional landlines are getting harder to set up if you don’t still have an old one, because the wiring is not as readily available anymore. However, there are many services that offer internet-based or mobile phone-based landline services so that you can connect a handheld phone or speaker phone to a real phone number without having to physically install a new line in your home.
Alternatively, you can look into a smartwatch, flip phone or other basic phone that doesn’t have video/photo capabilities or unnecessary apps. Some of these devices are especially designed with child safety in mind. Beyond landlines, these alternatives can be great options for a child or teen’s first phone, especially if they need to travel home from school or to afterschool activities by themselves, or if they have more than one home base, for example.
Whether a landline system would work for your family situation or not, it’s a great idea to pause and think about alternative options beyond grownup smartphones, especially for elementary-aged kids and tweens who only really need the ability to communicate with family and friends, without all of the distractions.
