What age is too young for a mobile phone?

[Renegade]

Apparently, the age is getting younger for marketers:

http://detroit.cbslo...-young-is-too-young/

Many metro Detroit kids headed back to class on Tuesday with the pencils, pens, notebooks and lunch — but what about a mobile phone?

How young is too young?

A study by the National Consumers League says 60 percent of U.S. parents offer cell phones to 10 and 11-year-old children.

...

“So by the time they turn 6, 7, 8, they’re very comfortable with the mobile devices.”

More at the link.

But, one of those things to think about. e.g. How many adults actually know how to manage a mobile device properly?

[40hz]

I'd suspect the feeling is it's never too young now that incidents like Sandy Hook School are behind us.

Simple suggestion - remove the numeric keypad & restrict inbound callers. Problem solved.


Parents really want something like this:



From a parent's perspective, most small kids don't need a full fledged phone. They need the functional equivalent of a StarTrek communicator. They need to be able to communicate with "The Bridge" of "StarFleet" for instructions; to ask or get permission; to request a beam-up; or (worst case) to scream for help.


If the mobile market were smart, for little kids, they'd create a simple "phone home" model that only had three buttons: (1) call home, (2) call mom/dad's mobile; (3) call 911. And this same phone would require either a PIN entry or a number previously stored on the phone to connect an inbound caller. That way only people authorized to call the kid would be able to do so.

Older kids would get a scrollable directory of numbers they were allowed to call instead of a few simple buttons. Inbound restriction to authorized numbere and PIN callers would still apply.

Do This and the average parent would likely get a phone (and pay for an account) for everybody in the household - including their newborn and the family dog.

[wraith808]

They already had them.  They apparently didn't take off as much as you intuit they would.  It says something about the market when Disney can't even market this niche.

[40hz]

They already had them.  They apparently didn't take off as much as you intuit they would.  It says something about the market when Disney can't even market this niche.

-wraith808 (September 03, 2014, 12:30 PM)

I'm talking more like one of those "life-alert" type gadgets.

And yeah...

But it was Disney who pooched it royally by attempting to push their content and other crap as part of their kiddie-mobile service. It was a complete turn-off for most parents. Even the ones with half a brain soon saw it for what it was - a "wedge" product Disney could use to "upsell" your kids with once they got one. That poisoned the well a bit. And unfortunately, several other mobile providers attempted to follow in Diz's footsteps. Some even stooped so low as to pitch "your first real phone" directly to the kiddies themselves. Soon, your kid's "street cred" took a serious hit in the cut-throat K-3 world if their classmates saw them haul out a Firefly. The cool kids all had real phones - or at least their Dad's hand-me-down.

But I was talking more like one of those "life-alert" type gadgets. And I still think (if marketed honestly) it could sell - provided the price point was right for the device and the subscription. Otherwise, might as well just get a standard smartphone bundle and put one of those "parental control" apps on it. Which is what has seemed to have happened.

[J-Mac]

I'm beginning to think that 60 might be too young!   

And I think that when an incident like Sandy Hook occurs, the cell phones serve mainly to cause a whole lot of parents showing up and crowding an already dangerous scene.

BTW, "incidents LIKE Sandy Hook" should be read as "all the school lockdowns that turn out to be due to a first grader drawing his finger too much like a gun".

Jim

[40hz]

^Actually, in the case of Sandy Hook, the real danger was just about every police department in the state sent their tactical units in. There were so many hopped up young cops in riot gear with military grade hardware ready "to take decisive action" it's a wonder nobody was shot and killed by accident. 

[Stoic Joker]

+1 to both of the above as contagious anxiety infects both sides (cops vs. parents) causing the situation to escalate when they each start to play to their respective audiences.

[mwb1100]

At the risk of this degenerating to a basement thread, police, parents and/or cell phones were not involved in any way in escalating what happened at Sandy Hook: http://www.cnn.com/i...sandy-hook-timeline/

Cripes - there are plenty of more common and more mundane situations that happen every day that a phone would make things easier for kids or parents.  For example, missing the bus or letting a parent know that you're going to stay after for some special project. 

[40hz]

At the risk of this degenerating to a basement thread, police, parents and/or cell phones were not involved in any way in escalating what happened at Sandy Hook: http://www.cnn.com/i...sandy-hook-timeline/

-mwb1100 (September 03, 2014, 07:33 PM)

I'm not sure exactly what you meant by "escalating what happened." The situation was what it was. And nobody said anything about cellphones having anything to do with anything. Where is there anything that could potentially "degenerate" into a basement thread?

I was simply referring to the massive turnout of parents, police tactical units and fire rescue responders at the school prior to the resolution of the situation. There were a large number of heavily armed police with weapons drawn conducting car and area searches for a second suspected gunman, which turned out not to be true. I'm not knocking the police. It was a very bad scene with parents and kids all over the place while that was going on.. But any time you have a large number of civilians and armed police in close proximity - in a situation where law enforcement is actively looking for an unknown gunman - the likelihood of 'accidents' increases exponentially.

 Hope that clarifies.

[40hz]

Cripes - there are plenty of more common and more mundane situations that happen every day that a phone would make things easier for kids or parents.  For example, missing the bus or letting a parent know that you're going to stay after for some special project.

-mwb1100 (September 03, 2014, 07:33 PM)

Agree.

See my earlier post here which said the same thing:

"From a parent's perspective, most small kids don't need a full fledged phone. They need the functional equivalent of a StarTrek communicator. They need to be able to communicate with "The Bridge" of "StarFleet" for instructions; to ask or get permission; to request a beam-up; or (worst case) to scream for help."