BURSTAll year long, schools have been grappling with how to respond to student cellphone use, which, according to many educators, had become almost constant among kids in older grades and increasingly disruptive to instruction.
What many schools have not tackled, over the same period, is the rise of smartwatches among younger kids.
A few years ago, smartwatches — high-tech wearables that can send and receive calls and texts, take photos and videos, and share precise location-tracking data, among other features — took off among preteens and early teens. Ever since, elementary and middle school educators have noticed the devices showing up more and more in their classrooms and school buildings.
This summer, as schools got to work rewriting their device policies, often resulting in stricter rules around cellphone use, EdSurge decided to dive deep into the world of kids’ smartwatches.
We interviewed parents, teachers, school leaders, smartwatch makers, digital media experts, child development specialists and child psychologists to understand what was driving this trend among tweens, how it works in practice, and what the possible risks are.
In October, EdSurge ran a long-form story on the topic, and our friends at WIRED co-published the story with us. You can also listen to an audio version of the article, as well as a podcast episode that goes behind the story.
Here are the key takeaways from our reporting:
1. Smartwatches are becoming a child’s first device.
Though smartwatches launched about a decade ago as a device marketed to adults, kids quickly took interest.
As a result, more companies began rolling out watches specifically designed for children. Today, companies like T-Mobile, Verizon and Garmin are advertising smartwatches to kids as young as 5 years old and describe their target audience as the 8- to 10-year-old range.
Sales data, along with anecdotal observations from educators, indicate that the trend really took off around 2019 and 2020. As of this year, the smartwatch market for kids is estimated to be well over $1 billion and growing quickly.
Because most smartwatches cost around $150, they are a more approachable purchase for families than, say, a smartphone.
Kids’ smartwatches are more sophisticated now than they were a handful of years ago. Today, many models include capabilities such as photo and video capture, video calling, access to a full keyboard for texting, voice messaging, group chats and geofencing. A spokesperson for Verizon described kids’ smartwatches as “truly a phone replacement on their wrist.”
2. Parent fear may be the primary driver of this booming market.
Kids like having a device of their own. Many people said in interviews that it is natural for children to want to have access to the same technology their older siblings, parents and peers have.
But that doesn’t seem to be the key motivator behind parents’ purchasing decisions.
Smartwatches have emerged as a favorite solution for parents and caregivers who want to be able to communicate with their child and/or track their location but don’t feel their child is ready for a smartphone. It’s cheaper, and it feels safer, since most smartwatches have more limited features and apps than a phone. Most smartwatches do not have web browsers, for example.
Around the time kids turn 8, 9, 10, 11, many parents want to give their children more freedom and independence. But the advent of the internet — and especially the rise of social media — has created a perception among parents that danger abounds and risks are everywhere. Smartwatches, many parents shared, give them the necessary “peace of mind” to let their children ride their bikes around the neighborhood, stay home alone, or hang out at a friend’s house nearby — activities that previous generations of children either did without any monitoring or with easy access to a landline phone in case of emergency.
Still, some observers say the “independence” that smartwatches allow kids is pretty hollow. After all, the whole point is that parents are just a swipe and tap away. And this comes at a time when intensive parenting practices are seemingly undermining the development of resilience in kids.
3. Little is known about the impact of smartwatches on kids.
So far, there has been minimal research on the impact of smartwatches on young children’s learning and development. Data on adoption and use is also quite thin. As a result, experts are mostly left to use guesswork and deductive reasoning about possible benefits and risks.
What we do know is that screens of all stripes can have deleterious effects on children, affecting their mental health, cognitive development, social and emotional development and language development. And watches, like most other devices, are built with persuasive design. They still have the same tendencies to distract and disrupt, with their pings, buzzes and chimes. That is, at best, a nuisance to teachers and school leaders who have to navigate the wearables in classroom settings.
But overall, it’s probably true that smartwatches would be a “safer” choice for kids if the alternative was a smartphone. The screen is small enough to deter kids from using it for extended periods. There are certain safety features built into the kid-focused watches, such as requiring a parent or guardian’s approval of all phone numbers, that cannot be monitored in the same way on phones or social media apps.
4. Cellphone bans may be growing in schools, but smartwatches are often left out, creating a loophole.
Countless school districts, and several states, have enacted new cellphone policies for the 2024-25 school year, often either requiring that students’ phones be put away during instructional time (meaning they could use it in between classes, in the hallways and at lunch) or that they be put away during all school hours.
The goal of these policies is to promote higher engagement and more focused learning but also, in some cases, improve youth mental health, which has reached crisis levels since the pandemic.
However, many of these policies pertain only to phones, creating a loophole for smartwatches and other connected devices.
For older students, who, as one superintendent shared, increasingly have access to both a smartphone and smartwatch, it’s pretty simple to skirt the rules. Their phones may be locked away in backpacks, lockers or school-issued pouches, but if their watch is within reach, they can still receive calls and messages, get news alerts and check notifications from other apps.
There are some schools, from elementary to high school, that have recognized the disruptiveness of smartwatches and explicitly added them to their school device policies. But they tend to be the exception, many education experts and school leaders believe. And it could be another year or two before other districts realize their omission and remedy it.