Whether they like it or not, parents are frequently warned about the dangers of letting kids use phones and tablets too much. Sometimes this is based on legitimate evidence, such as Meta’s (internal) admission that Instagram can harm the self-esteem of teenage girls. At other times these warnings are based on idealized versions of how kids should grow up — some halcyon vision of them finishing up homework so they can play at the park instead of hopping into Fortnite or Minecraft.
My wife and I have a preschool-aged son, whom we’ll call Gary for the sake of privacy. Shortly after he turned two, we made the decision to give him a tablet — in this case, my old iPad Air 2 after I upgraded to an iPad Pro (2020). Some months later, we even bought him a barebones 2017 iPad, since one of the main reasons I upgraded was the Air 2’s weak battery life. That let us swap in one tablet while the other was charging.
