Michael Moyer, a father of one, said he tries to keep his iPhone in his pocket while he’s around his 2-year-old son. However, Moyer also admitted to using his handset as a distraction tool during particularly stressful situations. “We will give a phone to him in the waiting rooms of doctors’ offices, for instance; he’s scared of the doctor’s office,” he said. Still, Moyer, who said he’d like to wait until his son is 6 or 7 years old before giving him a handset of his own, is skeptical of a smartphone’s ability to serve as a learning tool.
“Kids are wired to learn from other humans, not from animated displays,” Moyer said.