I bought my 12-year-old son the new ‘boring’ Balance Phone to keep him off social media. Here’s what happened

The elation was gone long before bedtime. In his excitement, he had not read the elegantly written marketing spiel on the box about how “offline is the new luxury”.

My son’s verdict was more succinct: this phone was “no fun”.

The device we had given him might have looked like the latest device from Samsung but it was, in fact, a Balance Phone.

Today’s News in 90 seconds – 10th May 2025

If you’ve not heard of these, it might be because you’re not in one of the Smartphonefree Ireland WhatsApp groups. On these, as in real life, there is a lot of anxiety about the infinite scroll and the potential damage that social media can do to younger adolescents. The Balance Phone is one of the emerging solutions that has parents’ ears perking up.

The Android device uses a filter that blocks apps based on their category in the Play Store. Anything classed as social media, games, streaming, dating or porn is barred. There’s no getting around it.

Kids can use it for useful stuff like checking Google Maps or Google Classroom, and be social with WhatsApp, but they won’t get brain rot watching non-stop YouTube Shorts, and their every free moment won’t be gobbled up playing video games.

My 12-year-old’s older siblings had received smartphones at his age. Their experiences since then had soured me on the idea. In 2019, when I thought I had a 30-minute daily limit on my eldest son’s TikTok, it turned out his phone had a glitch and he was able to enjoy unlimited entertainment for a year.

He says himself he reckons this messed up his attention span. He had also downloaded Snapchat a year before I had even heard of the app.

I now think I must have been insane to give phones that can access social media to my other kids this young.

That’s not to say I wouldn’t get them a phone. My youngest son was getting the bus on his own and it would be handy to be able to contact him.

I was inclined to get him a basic Nokia, but he wanted a smartphone, just like his pals (it all comes down to what their friends have). In fairness, a smartphone would also be practical if he needed to access his forgotten homework on the school bus, check public transport times and do nice things like send pictures to his granny.

When I saw an information video about the Balance Phone on the Smartphonefree group, I wanted in. So I accepted a free one (full disclosure) to review. My son would try it for a month and we would decide then. Sadly, our trial ended a week early for reasons I’ll come to. But we got a good sense of it.

To be honest, there is no way I would pay €283 myself for a kid’s starter phone, a device they are likely to drop or lose, although dodging the inevitable lobbying for apps might justify the cost for some.

There is zero point in your child hounding you to download Snapchat or other social media apps because the phone won’t accept them

There is zero point in your child hounding you to download Snapchat or other social media apps because the phone won’t accept them. On other Android phones, you can restrict a lot with Google Family Link, the free parental controls app, but pester power can ultimately force you to change what is allowed.

If your child already has a device, for €79 you can use the Balance Phone software solution for a year on a device compatible with Samsung Knox security software (which includes most Galaxy phones).

The phone, with hardware made by Samsung and an operating system made by Balance Phone, was launched in December and 800 have been sold. Ireland is the fastest-growing market.

Feedback so far is it reduces average daily screen time to one hour and 37 minutes. Sounds splendid, right? Well, the results were mixed for us.

Getting the Balance Phone started was easy, as was adding his number to our Google Family link parental app. We still wanted a screen limit and you can check the device location on this app. (I am not a fan of constant tracking but it is sometimes good to know.)

We allocated our son one hour and 30 minutes daily screentime – the same as his two older siblings. You have to keep a baseline or they will be on it non-stop, in my experience.

Along with WhatsApp, we downloaded Microsoft Teams for school (all educational apps are compatible), Maps, Weather, Spotify, Duolingo and Revolut.

There is a browser you can download – Ecosia – so you can use the likes of Wikipedia, Chat GPT, news sites and so on. Other browsers are not available (the company says the device is porn-proof).

Apps are listed in plain white text on a black background – none of your usual brightly coloured icons.

Within minutes, my son was warmly welcomed into the family WhatsApp groups and was happily ensconced in friend groups with titles like ‘Da Boys’ and ‘The Sigmas’, he was pinging away with his class group in Brussels and joyfully reunited with his old school pals in Dublin.

I peeked over his shoulder. While some messages were baffling (if anyone can translate “im a spin yo block g fr”, let me know), it was cheering he now had easy access to all his pals.

But then the realisation of what this phone was actually about hit him. We had explained it would have no social media or games but he told us to stop yapping about social media. I think he must have assumed he would work his way into it somehow.

But when he tried to download the Brawl Stars game, he was told it was not compatible. Same with TikTok, YouTube – all no go. Some of the messages from his class group were links to social media videos, which the phone blocked.

Going to bed that first evening, I was dismayed that he was so despondent. He “hated the phone”. “Send it back,” he said. I wished then we had just gone for a basic brick phone. At least its wholesomeness is upfront; he would know the most he was getting was Snake.

My son felt tricked by this “brick in disguise”. The next day he left it at home

My son felt tricked by this “brick in disguise”. The next day he left it at home.

By the second week, though, he was keen to take it to school and the first week of his Easter break, it was handy because he could arrange to meet his friends himself. He started to use it on the school bus. It was mostly WhatsApp but we had a long train journey over Easter and he listened to music and used Duolingo.

I was a bit taken aback at the number of messages he was getting so I turned off the notifications. While I did not read his messages, I did remind him regularly that we had his passcode.

When he got home from school he would be on the phone straight away – and when I saw his head bent over it, he just seemed too young and I would wonder if I had done the right thing. But after about 15 minutes he would put it aside, having had enough of the messages. If he had video games or YouTube shorts this would not happen – he would use up every second allocated to him.

This was the biggest difference I found between giving a younger adolescent a Balance Phone instead of a “normal” smartphone. (He was still playing as much football or playing Minecraft on the TV with his eight-year-old brother.)

When I saw him and the younger brother poring over pics in the family WhatsApp or checking the weather, it really hit me that when you get a child a smartphone, you are actually getting all the kids in the house one. Especially if they share a room. You are opening up the risk of viewing dubious content to all the kids.

The younger boys watch YouTube a bit in the afternoon but only when I’m floating around. It’s mostly endless football videos and if I see something that looks iffy, I can zap it. I do allow my 12-year-old to play video games on my phone but only for limited spurts.

In my experience, once a kid has their own smartphone, there is no limit to their appetite for mobile video games. And once they have a phone with social media, you lose a part of them to the digital world. You feel you can no longer protect them fully. No parent can be everywhere. With the Balance Phone, I felt more reassured.

But it also did niggle me. He did not really need the phone, so why bother? He could ring his granny on my phone and now he was less inclined to read his book on the school bus than before. When his siblings got phones, the amount of reading they did fell, so I was worried.

The third week was less positive. I noticed he seemed agitated sometimes. It crossed my mind that perhaps he was feeling an obligation to reply to messages immediately. He left his phone at home one day and there were 134 unread messages from one group. I started to think he did not need the hassle. He saw his pals in school; he was able to chat to his other pals on Fortnite and Minecraft.

At the end of week three, it was all over. We went on holiday and he was taking lots of pics to send on WhatsApp. He updated his WhatsApp status with a new pic and was checking to see how many views he got. I was surprised that checking for a reaction had got hold of him, but no kid is immune.

Research from the University of South Florida this year found that while there are benefits to kids aged 11 to 13 having smartphones, the downside was the way they would angle for likes on social media.

The lead researcher on the survey of 1,500 children, Dr Justin Martin, told me they were surprised to find many positives associated with owning a smartphone at this age, such as seeing their friends in person more (having arranged this on their phones), but they also found there were many harms with posting a lot publicly on social media.

Then I got wind that there had been stupid jokes posted on what of his group chats, so we pulled the plug.

WhatsApp is good for the social side but at 12 I would say most kids are not ready for group chats. There was nothing intentionally bad going on, but it was apparent he was not mature enough for the conversation that was taking place. (Although adults disgrace themselves often enough on neighbourhood WhatsApp groups all the time, so maybe we shouldn’t judge children too harshly in this front.)

Parents often blame peer pressure for giving in with the phones but I’m starting to think we are the ones not giving our kids credit for having more resilience

We will probably reintroduce the Balance Phone in the summer, though he has not yet asked for it back.

Parents often blame peer pressure for giving in with the phones but I’m starting to think we are the ones not giving our kids credit for having more resilience. We get worried they will be ostracised if they are not on an app, but if you hold out, they will be grand.

In fairness, the twentysomething Spanish founders of the Balance Phone are not targeting 12-year-olds. They make themselves easily available to customers and so get plenty of feedback. One of the co-founders, Albert Beltran, told me: “We’re learning that 14 is the sweet spot”.

I feel the Balance Phone would suit a mature 13- or 14-year-old, who would get more use out of apps like Spotify and Google Maps.

But I would not bother for a 12-year-old. A basic brick phone will do the job better.

The best thing about the Balance Phone, though, was that there was not one day my son begged me for more screentime and he never came close to reaching his max. There was not enough to keep him hooked. I might swipe it myself now.