It is widely accepted that children should not have smartphones and use them on their own. I strongly agree with this notion for a variety of reasons which will be discussed below.
Primarily, children are likely to waste a significant amount of time. When children under 12 years old own their smartphones, they may use it in wrong way. For example, they mostly tend to play different video games, which are addictive, and watch many useless videos on social media such as YOUTUBE and TIKTOK. As a result, they cannot do their homework well at school and fail tests where they may be punished or even expelled.
Another reason is that smartphones have negative impact on their health. If children spend a great deal of time on screen, this might affect their sleep, memory and focus. This, in turn, lead to a bad lifestyle where children are less likely to be successful in the future because they become extremely lazy and gloomy.
Finally, spending a lot of time on screen leads to isolation. Once children get used to using smartphones, they will no longer desire to go out and socialize with other people. They find really hard to make friends and form relationships so that they will be isolated from community when they grow up.
In conclusion, I strongly believe that children should not be allowed to use smartphones if they are under 12 since it brings a lot of drawbacks to their life.