Erin Napier is an author and home renovator who hosts “Home Town,” on HGTV with her husband, Ben Napier. The couple has 2 daughters together; Helen Napier is 4 years while Mae Napier is 1 year old.
Erin has always been very open to her fans about her personal life, and she often updates them about her children via social media. So, last week the 37-year-old mother took to her Instagram to share her thoughts on children using smartphones.
She opened up about the adverse effects of smartphones, considered herself fortunate to have grown up without social media, and expressed that her kids should not have access to it either. In the Instagram post, Erin featured a picture of herself during high school and said she was a “sensitive artistic kid” who loved capturing pictures.
She said she bought a Canon SLR camera from the money she earned by singing at the coffee shop and would often click random pictures of the things she admired. She had also made a picture album and would get praised by her parents and friends for her photography skills.
Moreover, the celebrity host added that she was confident and never skeptical about sharing her interest with her friends. With the Instagram post, Mrs. Napier expressed gratitude for not growing up in the social media era because the pressure of the existing online world would have crushed her passion for photography.
The HGTV host continues to say that social media for teens is the “cruelest and misguided critique of all that takes innocent youngsters without fully formed emotional minds down the wrong route. According to Erin, the social media world is only for adults who know who they are and can differentiate between wrong and right.
So due to this, she said she, her husband, and their friends have decided not to let their children have smartphones until they are adults. She believes this will prevent their children from complaining that all their friends have smartphones.
Furthermore, Erin said she does not care if it is selfish to prevent her daughters from social media. She said she would also prevent them from “finding a distorted picture of who they think they need to be, porn, hate, the criticism of strangers.”
The “Home-Town” co-host concluded her post by saying childhood is brief and precious, so she and her husband plan to treasure every moment of their daughter’s childhood and innocence.
Erin’s post was flooded with both positive and negative comments. While some people agreed with Erin and discussed how they battled their kids’ smartphone addiction, others remarked that kids who are told not to do something end up sneaky.
