One Third of UK Kids Under 10 Own a Mobile Phone

hypnosec writes "Nearly everyone is aware of the influence of technology, specifically that of the new-generation telephonic devices on our society. But, when one in every 3 under-ten kids start having their own mobile phones, only then we come to realize how deep rooted the influence really is — yes, that's what a new report claims. According to the latest findings by the cloud security outfit Westcoastcloud, near about 33 percent of all UK's under-ten kids are currently in possession of a mobile phone."

Comments

Re:Somebody tell the schools

[Anonymous Coward]

Useful for what? Why does a child need their own telephone?

Re:Somebody tell the schools

[MacTO]

Those policies exist for a number of reasons, and cover a variety of electronic devices:

1) Schools don't want to be held accountable for lost, stolen, or broken devices. And yes, parents blame the school when that happens.

2) Teachers don't want to deal with distracted children. Incidentally, this was true 50 years ago when kids weren't allowed to bring toys into class.

3) These contraptions are a source of bullying in a multitude of ways, ranging from theft to provoking and photographing/recording fights.

Just because you don't understand why policies exist doesn't mean that the school is an "idiot",

Re:Somebody tell the schools

[Joce640k]

Yep. The child doesn't need it. The parent does - so they can hover over them 24/7...

Re:Somebody tell the schools

[TheRaven64]

In rural areas, at least where I grew up in the UK, it was quite common for children to get a school bus to and from a school in the city, or to car-share and get a lift with another parent. Sometimes, there are problems with this. For example, my school bus left over half an hour after the end of school, from about 10 minutes walk away from the school. If I missed it, but didn't realise, I wouldn't get back to the school until about an hour after school finished, at which point there may not be any teachers around. There was a phone box on school, so I had a phone card that I could use to call home in the case of any problems.

The first time I used the school bus, I managed to get on the wrong one. I noticed when it got on the motorway, which definitely wasn't on my way home. I got off at the services, found a payphone and called home, but if I'd had a mobile then I'd have been able to call home from the bus and check where the best place to get off was.

And, on a more prosaic level, having a mobile phone later (I got mine when I was 16, which was when cheap pre-pay ones started to appear), it was useful to be able to call my parents if some after-school activity was cancelled, or something else happened that required me to leave school at a different time, such as when one of my close friends was killed in a car accident, or when I was coopted to the debate team at the last minute before a competition.