All day on the phone.

[overherebc]

Not sure if the correct forum.

 

My wifes cousins daughter 14 years old spends too much time playing with the phone.

She is an intelligent girl ( daughter) and her mother called my wife to see if I could advise how to reduce the phone use without causing too much conflict and causing conflict between daughter and mother.

I use tv and gmail and that's it so I have no idea at the moment if there is a way to limit time that the phone can be used, yes I know take the phone away and allow 2 hours a day maximum use. The way I would do it to be honest.

Is there a system, somehow, to limit the use of the SIM card on a daily basis?

I suppose I'm looking for a controlled system rather than a 'cold turkey' solution.

 

[janclaes47]

From Playstore you can download an app called Dinnertime plus. You install it on the phone and on 2 parental devices.

 

There are plenty of options like how much time a day can be spend on a certain category of apps or on one particular app.

 

You can block apps, you can make them available only during certain times, you can remotely close or uninstall an app and prevent from new apps to be installed.

 

And it is free.

 

The Kid can not uninstall the app.

[overherebc]

17 minutes ago, janclaes47 said:

From Playstore you can download an app called Dinnertime plus. You install it on the phone and on 2 parental devices.

 

There are plenty of options like how much time a day can be spend on a certain category of apps or on one particular app.

 

You can block apps, you can make them available only during certain times, you can remotely close or uninstall an app and prevent from new apps to be installed.

 

And it is free.

 

The Kid can not uninstall the app.

I'll pass that on.

[cyberfarang]

3 hours ago, overherebc said:

I'll pass that on.

The problem is overherebc, you and I come from a different era.

 

This is what kids do today, it`s as if their ears and hands are surgically attached to their phones. I know several adults, Thais and westerners that are exactly the same.

 

I believe it`s just a sad sign of our times and the cousin`s daughter is just copying what all her friends are doing. I know it`s irritating, but doubt the mother, your wife or you can do anything about it.

[Swiss1960]

The app I use for the daughter is called Qustodio. It also lets you define time of day, amount of time per day / app, lets you see call history (who called, was called), websites browsed etc

Sent from my CPH1821 using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[robblok]

7 hours ago, cyberfarang said:

The problem is overherebc, you and I come from a different era.

 

This is what kids do today, it`s as if their ears and hands are surgically attached to their phones. I know several adults, Thais and westerners that are exactly the same.

 

I believe it`s just a sad sign of our times and the cousin`s daughter is just copying what all her friends are doing. I know it`s irritating, but doubt the mother, your wife or you can do anything about it.

Your father probably said similar things about you sad sign of our times. ( for instance when television got introduced).  After that people said it when game computers were introduced. This will go on and on at least you can still access useful information on your phone just like with a computer.

[soalbundy]

12 hours ago, cyberfarang said:

The problem is overherebc, you and I come from a different era.

 

This is what kids do today, it`s as if their ears and hands are surgically attached to their phones. I know several adults, Thais and westerners that are exactly the same.

 

I believe it`s just a sad sign of our times and the cousin`s daughter is just copying what all her friends are doing. I know it`s irritating, but doubt the mother, your wife or you can do anything about it.

I have the same problem, my son 10 yrs old has taken over his sisters notebook and uses his other sisters iphone, as soon as he comes home from school he plugs the notebook into my modem and he is off and away playing online games with kids all over the world (has done wonders for his English reading abilities, gone are the days when he used to ask ''Papa what does 'f... you' mean'') if I switch off the modem he uses the iphone, if I take that away, he will watch TV. The difficulty is that his mother undermines me, ''Oh let him, just another hour'' etc. He is always top of his class at school but his teacher complained to me that his English reading abilities are far better than his Thai reading abilities so now I spend an hour reading Thai with him but I can sense that he is burning inside to get on the computer. It is a two edged sword, they have computer lessons at school and he is way ahead of the other kids as he is the only one with computer access at home.

[NextStationBangkok]

The problem is, she is an active child. That is positive. How can you lockup a 14 years old youngster at home ? She need some freedom.

 

Probably the girl can sign up for sports or outdoor club or social clubs or learning something the gives more interaction with outside world than TV, Phone etc.,

 

It would divert her mind from Phone, and focus on something specific.

 

Sports definitely helps, or she can focus on social service activity. Then she will find she is more worth than a phone.

[soalbundy]

3 minutes ago, NextStationBangkok said:

The problem is, she is an active child. That is positive. How can you lockup a 14 years old youngster at home ? She need some freedom.

 

Probably the girl can sign up for sports or outdoor club or social clubs or learning something the gives more interaction with outside world than TV, Phone etc.,

 

It would divert her mind from Phone, and focus on something specific.

 

Sports definitely helps, or she can focus on social service activity. Then she will find she is more worth than a phone.

Trouble is interaction with the outside world is per iphone, all her friends will be doing the same thing, before that teenagers would spend hours on the land line telephone. When I go to the local railway station I see everyone on iphones, just 3 or so yrs ago people would actually be talking to each other, not anymore.

[ronaldo0]

Change the house WiFi password !! ?

[moutamine]

That's easy... book her on activity club like sports or other type of group activities. 

Otherwise, welcome to the 21st century where human being will unlearn how to speak and interact.

[oldrunner]

I don't suppose young lady would care, but I recently read that constant use of cell phones can destroy brain cells (provided if any are left) leading to idiocy.

[Lacessit]

19 hours ago, janclaes47 said:

From Playstore you can download an app called Dinnertime plus. You install it on the phone and on 2 parental devices.

 

There are plenty of options like how much time a day can be spend on a certain category of apps or on one particular app.

 

You can block apps, you can make them available only during certain times, you can remotely close or uninstall an app and prevent from new apps to be installed.

 

And it is free.

 

The Kid can not uninstall the app.

Not sure I can agree with the last sentence. My observation is younger generations are almost invariably more computer-savvy than older generations - it's a Red Queen's Race trying to keep up with them.

 

[phantomfiddler]

Thailand is apparently the world leader in mobile phone usage, a sad 9.5 hours a day. What hope is there for these people ?

[NanLaew]

17 minutes ago, oldrunner said:

I don't suppose young lady would care, but I recently read that constant use of cell phones can destroy brain cells (provided if any are left) leading to idiocy.

...and the delusion that the 'cell phones fry your brains' theory is something recent.

[1FinickyOne]

Replace the cell phone with something more interesting... sure, good luck..

 

my niece is 13 and she loves school, but after that - - everything, including studies are on her phone or laptop... everything including, youtube, from which she listens to music and does pick up some English language, as well as video calling with her friends some of whom are no longer in the area...

 

the kid is busy with school probably 12 hours a day... after that, she can have her phone...

[cyberfarang]

9 hours ago, robblok said:

Your father probably said similar things about you sad sign of our times. ( for instance when television got introduced).  After that people said it when game computers were introduced. This will go on and on at least you can still access useful information on your phone just like with a computer.

I agree. Back in those times it was said that too much Television is a bad influence for kids. I remember returning home from school and before even taking off my coat, I`d switch on the TV. My father used to say; I`ll turn goggle eyed if I keep watching the TV.

 

But with televisions, we couldn`t carry them around with us and they were strictly housebound, the same when computers (PCs) were introduced.

 

But these days those phones have become an international epidemic, people are addicted to them and worse of all, they travel everywhere with them. They have become extensions of their bodies, permanent fixtures that they simply can`t put down. 

 

So although I agree TVs and computers were somewhat addictive, I don`t think they can be compared with people`s obsessions and dependence on the technology of today.

[Lacessit]

46 minutes ago, NanLaew said:

...and the delusion that the 'cell phones fry your brains' theory is something recent.

I'm not so sure. I have had three friends die from glioblastomas ( brain cancers ) and they were all inveterate cell phone users. I used to joke they would save a lot of time by just having them sewn to their ears.

There is also the consideration of the consequences to producers and consumers if a statistical link was established. A lot of vested interests would want that information suppressed. Just like the tobacco industry did for decades.

Call me paranoid; however, as Kissinger once remarked, even paranoids have enemies.

[janclaes47]

2 hours ago, Lacessit said:

Not sure I can agree with the last sentence. My observation is younger generations are almost invariably more computer-savvy than older generations - it's a Red Queen's Race trying to keep up with them.

 

Everything can be uninstalled if they format the phone, but the parent get a warning notification if they attempt to uninstall or if there is some suspicious activity on the phone.

[baansgr]

Is your wife's cousin prepared to provide other activities and keep her amused instead of having the phone.  In reality phones and tablets  can be a godsend, I predict after a few days she may very well give her the phone back to use whenever  she wants

[Mansell]

The other serious issue looking at the small screen on the phone for games etc is becoming myopic. I have noticed this with the 12 year old, and we are getting glasses for him this weekend. There was a recent. Article about this on the BBC. I noticed when I saw him squinting at the TV, and I have a big screen. I have them down to an hour a day, and one in the morning, afternoon, evening at the weekend. Try to get them out of the house doing things. Of course they squawk about the phone, but I don't care as their mental health is more important.

[soalbundy]

1 minute ago, Mansell said:

The other serious issue looking at the small screen on the phone for games etc is becoming myopic. I have noticed this with the 12 year old, and we are getting glasses for him this weekend. There was a recent. Article about this on the BBC. I noticed when I saw him squinting at the TV, and I have a big screen. I have them down to an hour a day, and one in the morning, afternoon, evening at the weekend. Try to get them out of the house doing things. Of course they squawk about the phone, but I don't care as their mental health is more important.

and how they squawk. They have to be offered something different, that maybe easy in a big town but in the countryside it's difficult, my son see's his mother and step sisters on the phone and me on the computer, I read with him, ''boring'', I take him on nature walks, ''boring'', it's easy to give up the fight. I have hope that eye damage wont be a big concern as he spends all day at school and he mostly uses the big notebook screen in the evening. He is more intellectually minded and not interested in sports. Recently he told me that he has a Youtube account now and that he and some of his online friends are going to combine and post on youtube, he is going to be a youtuber and buy a Porsche before he is a teenager, we all had our dreams once. 

[mtls2005]

There are some proven behavior modification techniques, and very generally speaking, positive reinforcement might be the most universally successful?

 

That said, not sure how effective this would be in the OP's case, being so far removed both familially (wife's cousin's daughter) and culturally (assuming the OP is not Thai) from the young woman?

 

 

[lamyai3]

Restricting time on phones for something like gaming is one thing, but much of the time spent on the phone is likely to be on messaging apps, socially interacting with friends online. To block or restrict this could bring unwanted side effects of real resentment and rebellion if she is being restricted more than her friends. Better would be to instil discipline regarding time spent on serious activities like homework and sport where it's a rule that the phone is put away... in that way the phone becomes a motivation to get their homework finished so they can play with it.