Dumb phone at last class of primary school. And smart phone (10 yrs) when she entered college. All other kids have a smart phone at college and she would be out of the sphere without whatsapp.

However, I strongly restricted screen time (parental settings iphone), wifi time at home (extra wifi net with timeout at night) + phone free morning at weekends, ipblocks for tictoc, insta, and router blocks for porn, safe search, and monitoring network by firewalla tool. And yes, we sometimes check her chats as well (yes, there‘ve been attempts by strangers to establish connection/ get pics) Quite a massive tech effort to give my kids sort of teen save access without falling into that addiction trap.

Internet isn’t safe nor has trustful content for kids actually. Apps make you addicted and want your money. Social media let feel you ugly, boring, and steals your time. School chats might get toxic with mobbing. Living without internet isn’t possible anymore. It’s a tough time to be a teen nowadays.