We are delighted to introduce blog #2 in a new series of personal reflections from Sam Lee, Managing Director of Screen Sanity. We are so eager for him to share his journey into digital health and wellbeing, learnings and thoughts as our Managing Director, a Father of three busy children, Husband, friend and all-around awesome human. Welcome to Sam’s Spotlight!
In Sam’s second entry, he shares more about his personal experience and the process of getting their son his first phone. Read more!
December, 2025
I promised my son I’d get him a phone in 7th grade. For our family, that timing felt right, as long as it was going to be a first phone. This was our first time going through the “first phone” process. He’d been sharing an iPad with his siblings, but this year he told me he wasn’t going to school as an “iPad kid.” He had two requests: the phone needed to look normal, and it needed to allow him to keep playing Brawl Stars.
Done.
We ordered a Pinwheel phone (the Samsung model) and while we waited for it to arrive, I decided to download the Pinwheel parent app and start setting things up. One early lesson: don’t expect to complete the parent setup until the phone is actually turned on. That threw me for a minute. But once the device powered on for the first time, everything synced and the parent portal worked exactly as it should.
The level of control I had; contacts, message visibility (even deleted ones), app choices, was a breath of fresh air. My daughter uses an iPhone, and that system simply doesn’t offer these controls without a lot of workarounds.
My son’s original request narrowed things down quickly. Gabb doesn’t allow the Google Play Store, and Brawl Stars isn’t on their curated app list. Great product, but it wasn’t going to meet his needs.
Other first phones, like Bark, do allow Google Play. But Pinwheel made sense for us for two additional reasons. First, I didn’t want a default browser on the device. I trust the safe-browser options the other companies offer—I just didn’t want to deal with that right now. Second, I wanted the phone on my own mobile carrier. Bark’s monitoring system is excellent and more automated. With Pinwheel, I need to check messages periodically. Both approaches are solid. It just depends on what matters most to you.
So, three things: 1/Brawl Stars, 2/staying on my carrier, and 3/no default browser, led us to Pinwheel. If you’re thinking through your own criteria, our comparison chart is a great place to start: https://screensanity.org/tool/first-phone-comparison-chart/.
I want to be clear: any of the main first-phone brands can be a great option. They’re all designed to give parents control and structure that a standard smartphone just doesn’t provide. You can make an iPhone work as a first phone, but you need to be intentional and have a plan. It’s absolutely doable. It just isn’t automatic.
There is one unavoidable factor, though, and it has nothing to do with the phone’s safety features. It’s the social reality of being the lone Android device in a crowd dominated by iPhones, amplified by pre-teen emotions. That’s a topic of its own, and I’ll cover that in my next blog entry. Until then, Sam
Until next time, keep looking up,
Sam
