From the New York Times, you're listening to The Wirecutter Show.

Hey, everyone. It's The Wirecutter Show. I'm Christine Cyr Clissette. I'm Kyra Blackwell.

And I'm Rosie Garan, and we work at Wirecutter, the product recommendation site from the New York Times.

Each week, we bring you expert advice from our newsroom of 140 journalists who review everyday products that will make your life better.

This episode of The Wirecutter Show is called Is It Time to Get Your Kid a Phone?

Rosie, Kyra, how you doing? Hi. Good. It's a big week for me. My kids are going back to school, which for every parent is like the best. It's so wonderful.

Good for the kids too. Yeah, good for the kids too. But this is a real milestone for my family because I now have a middle schooler. My daughter, Lucy, who is 11, is going into sixth grade.

And because of her age, there is one conversation that we keep having at home almost weekly.

And I actually just want to tee it up. I took a little voice memo. Do you want to hear?

Yeah, absolutely.

So Lucy, how do you feel going into middle school

with our decision not to give you a phone? I feel like I'm worried that like all my friends

and everybody at middle school will have a phone and I'll be like the only one, even though like

my friend told me like she's not going to have a phone,

which I'm glad about to have like one person at least be there with me.

And I know this is not going to happen, but like what does people make fun of people that don't have phones?

You get that baby a phone right now.

Kaira, it's tearing me up inside. I feel like I know what I have decided, but I still

vacillate because kids and phones and their digital lives has just been a really big

topic of conversation this past year. In June, the surgeon General called for a warning on social media for kids and

adolescents. And in the spring, Jonathan Haidt came out with his very popular book, The Inxious

Generation, which I think has really spurred a lot of conversation around kids and social media.

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