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Comment by tootie | Hacker News Reader

I'd buy a few of these for my kids.

I have no kids myself, but from friends who do have kids I hear they get teased (and sometimes bullied) if they don't have a half decent smartphone. And some of these friends are living in poorer ('non western') countries even. I guess my friends are not lying, but not sure how widespread that is.

Kids get made fun of for whatever nonsense is available as ammunition. I've never seen kids get laughed at over phones though.

>...I hear they get teased (and sometimes bullied) if they don't have a half decent smartphone.

I've also heard of kids getting left out of things socially for the same reason. One family tried the "you don't need a smart phone until sometime in high school" thing, but their kid started missing invitations to everything because the plans developed on whatsapp, snapchat, or Facebook - all of which the kid didn't have real-time access to.

They relented and got their middle school kid a smartphone.

Way too much of the social world of students goes through phones to be able to keep up without a smart phone.

> from friends who do have kids I hear they get teased (and sometimes bullied) if they don't have a half decent smartphone

My daughter is in middle school, and pretty much everyone in her class has iPhone. Only a few have an Android phone.

School requires every student to have a Chromebook, but even teachers encourage students to use smartphones. Also, one of the apps only works on smartphones.

My daughter has my old Samsung 6s. She doesn't complain or ask for a new phone, but I know she wants an iPhone.

> School requires every student to have a Chromebook

And a mandatory Google account for tracking your kids. I'd change the school.

or change something about said chromebook :)

Kids will tell you years later that it was wrong giving their data to Google, an Ad company, with core business of monetizing people's data.

In the 2 years they use this phone what value is there possibly to be gained??? It's virtually zero value to anyone.

They'll keep their Google accounts, because of emails and logins on other sites, and use them on their next devices, keeping data flowing and attributed.

Hell. They would even browse Internet using Chrome signed in to their G accounts, giving away browsing history (all their secret dreams, interests that even closest people don't know about)

Users on these phones generally don't have google accounts. Of course some kinds of Assistant commands won't work without such an account, e.g. scheduling appointments in your google calendar.

And these phones don't run Chrome at all.

I don't see why. I wasn't using my data for anything so it seems like a win-win if someone will pay for it. Also, NB this phone runs KaiOS, not Android.

KaiOS "now sport official Google Assistant" .. "same OS just received over $20m funding from Google and even partnered with them"

Its the code that runs 24/7 what matters, Android or a few G services is of no difference.

> I wasn't using my data for anything

Browsing, location, contacts, photos of friends, calendar, emails... the lot. Goal is your full psychological profile, skills, circles, reactions, job positions. From as much data as possible. Uses today are simple ad targeting, maybe 3rd party screening checks. Tomorrow?

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