James Kendrick points me to an interesting article on CNET UK about the average age of children when they get a mobile phone. The article states that a recent study shows that the average age of a child is expected to drop to five years old this year – while five years old does surprise me, I thought I would weigh in with my opinion, and it is generally a positive one. I would like to say first, however, that I am not going to address the issue of phone radiation, as we could argue back and forth about that little issue all day.
If I remember correctly, I got my first phone at the age of eleven or twelve, which was quite young back then (I was the first kid I knew with a phone). Even ignoring my involvement in the industry, I have no problem with parents giving a phone to a child – with a few caveats. For a start, I do think that five is too young; sometime in the latter stages of Primary school (or elementary school, depending on where you are, between grades 5-7) would be more appropriate.
To be honest, I like the idea of companies making child friendly phones like the Firefly and LG’s Migo. I do not agree with giving a fully-fledged handset to a child, but I think that these very restricted handsets are a safe way to introduce a child to the responsibilities of owning a phone – including teaching them the associated costs of calling, and looking after the phone itself. These child-focused handsets also provide a form of peace of mind to parents, with children at an age where they start going out with friends and generally getting around a bit more on their own, as many have integrated GPS tracking capabilities and emergency buttons.
One thing I do dread though, which is something that the CNET article also touches on, is the way an SMS messaging capable handset could destroy a young person’s aptitude in spelling and grammar. I absolutely despise receiving a message coded in ‘TXT TLK,’ and with handsets including easy to use predictive text input methods these days, I really see no excuse for the laziness. This is one issue I don’t really know how to address, though it is one that the restricted kid-phones don’t have (as they cannot send text messages). Short of trying to instill a respect for good grammar and spelling in your children (which is probably a pipe dream), I don’t know how we can solve this one.
Like everything, there is good and bad points to giving a phone to a child. Overall, I’m on the positive side of the fence. I do not have children though, so my stance could completely turn around when I do.