The Dumbest Phone Is Parenting Genius

When Caron Morse’s 9-year-old daughter asked for a smartphone last year, her reaction, she told me, was unambiguous: "A hard hell no." Morse is a mental-health provider in the Portland, Maine, public-school system, and she was firmly against smartphones, having seen how social media and abundant screen time could shorten students’ attention spans and give them new anxieties. But she wanted her children to have some independence-to be able to call friends, arrange playdates, and reach out to their grandparents on their own. She also needed a break. "I was so sick," she said, "of being the…