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Last Words
Kiddie Cell Phones: Hot New Toy?
By Elisa Batista, Wired News
10/12/2002
Dear Santa: Forget Mattel, and bring on Nokia.
As some parents already know, the hot item on many 8- to 12-year-olds' wish lists this holiday season isn't Barbie or a Hot Wheels car, but a cell phone.
If a child in this age group doesn't already own a cell phone -- 21 percent of them do, according to research by SpectraCom -- he or she is likely part of the great majority pestering mom and dad for one.
As Robert Butterworth, a Los Angeles psychologist, put it: "Board games have become bored games for kids.
"Anyone who works with kids knows about the big 'P' -- peer pressure," Butterworth said. "Once someone gets it, everyone has to get it."
Cell-phone ownership among young children is somewhat of a sore spot for many adults, though.
While no substantial evidence exists that radiation emitted by cell phones has an adverse effect on young brains, no studies prove that radio frequencies are good, either. Erring on the side of caution, Bangladesh earlier this year banned cell-phone use among children under the age of 16. Great Britain issued a warning that cell-phone use among children could possibly be harmful to their developing brains.
Schoolteachers frown upon using cell phones in class and oftentimes confiscate phones from disruptive students. At the Clarendon Alternative School in San Francisco, for example, many teachers and parents own cell phones, but the school has a strict policy against children using their own phones in school.
But for many parents, the most important issue is that they don't want to foot the bill for a new phone and what may be hours of their kids' talking and playing mobile games.
Cost is the main reason Becky Boyd, of Atlanta, Georgia, told her 10-year-old son he couldn't have a cell phone.
"Some of the kids in his class do have cell phones ... just like they have to have the latest and greatest Game Boy," Boyd said. "I think it's a little ridiculous for a child to walk around with a cell phone."
But some parents, out of concern for the safety of their children, insist that their kids carry a phone with them at all times.
Dr. Cathryn Tobin of Toronto, Canada, said her three children -- ages 10, 12 and 14 -- all have cell phones because "it gives me a great deal of peace of mind to be able to reach them."
She added that her youngest daughter, Madison, happens to be the most responsible with the phone. Madison always takes it with her and is constantly recharging it.
She is also quite savvy with it: One day Madison had a tiff with her mother. As she sulked in the back seat of the car, she punched a message on her phone. Some seconds later, her mom's phone -- in the front seat of the car -- beeped and Tobin received this text message: "I'm sorry, mom."
"My youngest one was so enthusiastic about it that she is conscientious (about taking care of the phone)," Tobin said.
Jyl Steinback, a Scottsdale, Arizona, mother, shares Tobin's fears and insists that her 9-year-old son, Scott, carry a cell phone with him, too.
Steinback said that her son's elementary school recently underwent construction, which made it impossible for her to park her car there and wait for him after school. She reluctantly agreed to let him ride his bike to school, as long as he was with a friend and carried a cell phone in his backpack.
Scott said he didn't mind toting the phone.
"I was so excited I jumped up and down," he said.
Scott uses the phone primarily to call his friend and play a game called Brick Attack. He is the only third-grader at his school to own a cell phone, but he says he doesn't show it off for fear of theft.
"I don't want them to find out," he said.
Even if parents can't or don't want to buy cell phones for their young children, they need not worry about ruining their child's holiday.
Boyd's 10-year-old son, Wil Caruso, said the novelty of the phone has worn off for him. Plus, only one fifth-grader at his school carries around a cell phone, and she isn't even allowed to use it.
When asked what he wanted for Christmas, Wil said without hesitation, "a radio-control helicopter."
Read the full article at Wired News
Links:
Spectracom
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