MINI: Landline Phones for Kids?

There is a new trend of parents getting landline phones for their kids so they can stay connected without the screens. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hihart podcasts, heem More Kiss podcast playlist and listen live
on the free i Heeart app. Britt, do you remember
when you were a kid how much time we would
all spend on the landline?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yes, I used to do.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
I remember my parents had a landline next to their bed,
Like we had two, one in the kitchen and one
next to we had too fancy and I used to Oh,
I used to park up with like some maltesers, some
snacks on mum's bed and just be on that landline
to my friend's bow.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Yeah, it was yours connected to two different because the
problem is we had two phones in a house, but
if one.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Person was on the phone, they connected.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Oh yeah, so you can't call like it just means
that two people in the same house can be on
the same call.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
And also Dad used to have a business from a home,
and if you ever needed the Internet, you had to
hang up. You couldn't be on the phone line was
an internet?

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Ye had the dialog. It all came out of the
same thing.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
I remember I would spend hours on the phone to
either my friends or like some boy that I like
when I was fourteen years old, and my mom would
should give me like a countdown timer. She had like
an egg counter, and once it got to the bottom, we.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Lived a different life. She would come, she would come
and she would rip it out of the wall. And
that's how she'd get me off. Is she you should
unplog it? Because I just wouldn't get off. She couldn't control.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Me, and I would drag the whole landline into my bedroom,
sit on my bed.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Because they had really long cords, had a really long stretch.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
What about when you got a cordless one, so it
was still the landline, but you could go outside and
ride around on your bike in circles and be on
the phone.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
That's what I to do. I don't know if we
ever had it. It's pretty advanced. Yeah, lit, Wow, you
guys must have been real rich.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Look, the reason why I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Talking about this is because I think one of the
biggest things that parents face, especially if you have tweens
or teens, is having kids on mobile phones. Right, and
there's the big debate at the moment everyone's been talking
about it. You know, kids are being banned from using
social media in Australia up until the age of sixteen,
and how do we get kids to spend less time
on their screens.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
You know, you don't want them.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
To be begrudged of childhood memories and spending time will
be excluded from.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Their friendship groups. But how do we do it in.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
A slightly more analogue style. So there's a dad in
the States who had these exact questions as we all have,
but he came up with a solution for it, and
it's going absolutely viral.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
It's called tin Can. I just want to preface this.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Is absolutely not a promotion, but I've seen this quite
a few times online and I think it's brilliant. So
it is bringing back the landline, bringing back what was
a childhood a core childhood memory for us, and reinstating
it so that instead of kids having mobile phones in
their rooms being like unattended on screens, having a landline
phone in the house that's been specifically designed just for

(02:33):
your kids so that they can call their friends or
call whoever they want to who also has a landline,
and like bringing back that thing that we all did
as kids. And I think it's got so much merit
to it.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
And just to be clear, so it is a landline,
but there's still Wi Fi connect to Chipe.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Yeah, yeah, because no one's going to get like a
sit there with their old dial up thing.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
Again, well, the smart thing is for this guy that's
made this is that like you can only call someone
else if they also have the tin Can phone. So
it's like he's going to sell out, for sure, he's
going to mass sell.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
But I think it's a great idea.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
It gives them their freedom, it takes away the screens,
it still lets them feel connected and not necessarily like
they're missing out on anything.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
I think it's brilliant.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
But it's also this version of it, so it's like
it's a landline, but it has parental limitations on it,
so you can.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Put like block app periods.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Okay, the kids can't call each other during dinner time,
or they can't call each other during homework time, so
the phone won't work because you can put parental restrictions
on it. But I think it's like the perfect gift,
right you buy one for your kid and then get
one for their best friend, and so you know they
have those connections and not being they're not missing out
on something. And that seems to be the biggest debate

(03:36):
at the moment is like well, the reason why the
kids have a phone is because otherwise they miss out
on birthday parties, or they miss out on invitations, or
you know, the kids are all doing stuff in group
chats or whatever, and my child is the one missing
out on it. And I feel like that this is
such a smart way of doing it and bringing it back,
but like in the kind of safe way that we all.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Got all to experience.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
I also like that there's do not disturb hours where
you can you can black it out. But I just
think I wonder if it has the same technologies, you know,
how we put on do not disturb. For example, the
number of times I'm on do not disturb then Laura
just pushes a call through anyway. It's just like because
you can press like do you want to disturb them anyway?

Speaker 2 (04:12):
And Laura's always like, yep, disturbed, disturbed No.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
I think yeah, I feel like that it will be
different if it's being put on by a parent.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
But you put it on and it's on all day
and I'm like, no, I need to talk to you.
I don't see your phone.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
Read No.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
I think it's great.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
I think it has like I mean, I hope it
comes to Australia. I'm not sure if it's available here yet,
but honestly, the more that I see it, the more
that I think that this is such a smart business
model to bring back landlines for kids and get them
off iPhone anyway.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
He