Kids with Cell Phones, How Young is Too Young?

An anonymous reader writes "CNet is reporting that the average age of a child receiving their first cell phone is continuing to drop. A report carried out last year showed that the average age of a child's first cell phone was just eight years old and is expected to drop closer to 5 years of age this year. The author raises the obligatory medical questions that have been argued about in adults for years. Just how young is too young for a cell phone?

Comments

School age

[Anonymous Coward]

It is only a decade ago, my sister worried if a responsible parent could send a kid to school without a cell phone. Today that would be unheard of, how else can the kids sort out when and where to meet their parents for home transport, changes of plans, or emergencies? By the time all three kids were going to school, that family of five had no less than seven active working phones...

Of course, that was in Finland.

Re:How young is too young?

[Red Flayer]

In my experience, many problems with family harmony can be either traced back to cell phone use -- or cell phones helped compound the problem.

And before cell phones, those same problems could be traced to regular telephone use. And before regular phones, those same problems could be traced to the same underlying factor: kids trying to establish their independence.

Cell phones aren't causing those problems, they are just a manifestation of other problems -- some of which are just part of the normal process of growing up/raising kids.

Why not just lock out all numbers except 'home' and '$parentsoffice' during proscribed times? Allow general use during the time they are allowed to watch TV -- then they can choose between the two.

Finally, one more thing -- ban cell phones from mealtimes, and from family time.

The trick isn't to ban kids from using cell phones -- the trick is to teach them to use them considerately, responsibly, and at appropriate times.

That said, I won't let my kids have a cell phone until they are allowed to go off and do things unsupervised -- their tween years. Then I won't feel comfortable unless I know that IF they needed to contact me, they could.

Now, back to TFA -- I think the health concerns are probably overstated, and are for me a minor concern compared to the social and psychological well-being of my kids.

Re:preprogrammed phones for kids?

[tomjen]

I would not do that to my child - a child deserves a little privacy and the older he becomes (starting when the kid start school) he should learn to take more care of himself.

Does the fact that I walked to school every day (500m) from I was 6 mean that my parents where bad?

Re:preprogrammed phones for kids?

[cayenne8]

"However, I don't think it's safe anymore to allow your eight year old to wander a large shopping mall alone."

I keep hearing this, but, I don't know that I buy into it. There were "bad" people when I grew up...I think it is more hype and paranoia these days...I doubt there is more of it than back then...you just hear about it constantly due to 24/7 news channels having to have something to report!

I mean, are we saying kids today are more STUPID than we were growing up? I certainly knew not to go with anyone else...to stay in public places...and to pretty much obey my parents!! If I could be trusted at that age, why the hell can't kids today be trusted in the same manner?

Re:preprogrammed phones for kids?

[Nutria]

all I had to do was check in. Of course, if they found out I was somewhere other than the place I told them, there was hell to pay.

So, in other words, they did "monitor and analyze (your) whereabouts", given the level of technology available at the time...

Back in my day

[teal_]

Back in my day, during the summer, the neighbourhood kids would all leave the house early in the morning (riding our bikes with no helmets) to go play with GIJoe or Star Wars figures in somebody's back yard, go to the comic book store (tended by an eerily similar fella as the one in The Simpsons), go play (and pirate) C64 games at somebody's house, and just be all over the place, including woods and construction sites and our parents had no idea where we were all day, nobody could reach us. Only rule is we'd have to be home by the time it was dark. I don't recall ever having someone we knew go missing or of anything awful happening to anybody, maybe we were just lucky (middle class suburbs of Chicago), but then again we weren't stupid either, we knew not to get into cars with strangers and what not. Anyway, those were the days, no worries, no responsibility, pure independence, all day.

Give a kid a cell phone and you make them trade that experience for your own peace of mind, all of a sudden you burden them with something there. It's tough though, if I were a parent I'd be too fretful to let my kids run about like I did. Parenting must be a totally different experience now with the internet and cell phones, you're not sure who your kids are associating with. At least back then our parents knew that were were only associating with other kids more or less our age, but with the net, dunno.