Children addicted to video games ran away from home in the middle of the night to find WiFi when parents turned their internet connection off, says expert::Children have been found sitting by the front door of random homes, desperately trying to tap into the owner’s WiFi connection.
Don’t put the devices in their hands until they’re older. And even when you do, immediately limit the time from the start. As an IT guy too, it’s how I’m doing it. Use an older device without any accounts setup on it. Install fdroid and only get apps from there. Leave it on airplane mode except when wifi is needed (by you).
At this point, my 4yr old gets bored rather quickly with my old phone.