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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?
Poor means hoping the toothache goes away.
I think that this whole cell phone culture is pretty fascinating. I mean, a few millenia ago it was pretty common for kids to live in tribal societies where they knew and had easy access to their friends in physical space. Walk to the next hut over and talk to your friend, if you're not busy doing chores.
In modern society, I think that social networking and technology are bringing people "virtually" closer together despite the fact that many of us now live orders of magnitude further away from our friends and even relatives than our ancestors did. So in a sense, the idea that a kid is "too young" for a cell phone really cuts to controlling that child's interactions with his or her peers. I mean, once they would have been able to physically play with their friends, but now they live 30 miles from their best friend.
To me, it seems like it will happen anyway - we will see kids getting phones as soon as their language skills reach the point that they can appreciate having conversations with people that they can't physically interact with. Instead of restricting the phones, though, I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't phones developed which allowed parents to restrict/track contacts in the same way that parents long ago would visually keep an eye on their kids.
It's a different world, but in a way, there's nothing new under the sun again. Just technology enabling old ways of interaction to be feasible (at least in spirit) in a faster, more spread-out world.
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When I was 5 years old I couldn't convince my mother to buy me a new GI Joe .... there's no flippin way I could have gotten a cell phone, even if they did exist.
;-)
What the hell does a 5 year old need with a cell phone? Call the babysitter to tell them you'll be late because you're power lunching with Billy on some cool mudpies? Call AAA if your Big Wheel breaks down? (Assuming they still make Big Wheels
Crap do I feel old now.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
It made me realize that children with cell phones never get to be completly free of their parents. Who remembers, as a child, being able to get away from over-protective parents by simply walking away from a phone? Now, as children get cell phones, over-protective parents will flip out whenever the "battery dies".
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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.
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They objected, but they didn't say anything? What did they do, send you a memo?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I have 4 sons, the oldest of which is 8. For my children, there is no place that they go where they are not supervised by adults. So it's not really an issue... yet. But it soon will be. Soon, I'm going to be faced with a dillemma. On the one hand, I want them to have access to a cell phone so that they can call me if they need me. It's a safety thing.
On the other hand, I really don't want them eating up 17x10^23 minutes every month. Nor do I want to worry about the frequency with which my kids tend to lose things. They lose things that aren't important to them. And if I gave them a device that limited their minutes and contacts (e.g. a firefly type device) then they'd probably lose it because it's just not that important to them.
The one thing I am absolutely certain of, however, is that I do not want to see some law come in and make the decision for me. Let me decide how old is an appropriate age for my children to have a cell phone. What might be a sensible answer for my kids might not be a sensible answer for my neighbor's kids. My neighbor is a single parent mom. Her 8 year old has a cell phone. She absolutely relies on her kids ability to have a cell phone, and it seems a sensible thing for her situation. Any law, even one that tries to think of all the contingencies, will ultimately fail to account for something. This is better left to individuals to decide for themselves and leave the legislation out of it.
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Text message. . .
do you really want your daughter stranded in the middle of nowhere without a way to call for help when her looser friends forget to pick her up?
Her "looser" friends? I would hope that my daughter wouldn't hang out with such sluts. But then again I would hope that my daughter isn't the loosest.
> [Cell phones] also [have] a handy little kidtracker GPS
So that's why my mom insists on continuing to pay for my cell phone despite the fact that I am living on my own and making a six figure salary! Better leave it at home next time I troll a Vampyre club and strip joint...