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This post is one of many, related to my participation in Harold Jarche's Personal Knowledge Mastery Workshop.<\/em><\/p>\n Shhhh… Don't tell anyone, but our 13 year-old son will likely be getting his first “smart” phone for Christmas this year. I don't think he has ever read my blog, so we should be good until December. As long as you cooperate with this secret surprise.<\/p>\n I remember reading a few years back that the average child in the United States gets a phone at the age of 11. That seemed really early to me then. By the time Christmas rolls around, he will be about a month away from turning 14, which seems awfully late.<\/p>\n Our son would agree.<\/p>\n He tells us that he and one other guy in school are the only kids without a phone at this point. This may sound like a stereotypical story of woe that young people tell their parents to let them have something. But when we discuss the subject, there's a common theme:<\/p>\n What he really wants is a camera, disguised as a phone.<\/p>\n A primary driver for his wanting the camera and messaging functionality is his upcoming middle school Washington DC trip in the Spring. When I tossed the idea around of getting him a camera, instead, he had no interest in that, though. Dave and I have talked a lot about it and figure this is a good time for him to get a phone and we've started our discussions about how we want to handle that, as parents.<\/p>\n Dave and I talk more about these tensions in the second half of the video we recorded of us unboxing and playing with Justin Shaffer's Alignment: A Course Design Deck<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\nThe Medium: The “Smart” Phone<\/h3>\n