Should kids be getting Mobiles for Christmas?
By Ben Robinson on Monday, November 10th, 2008 at 4:34 PM PST In Christmas, The Digital Life
So here is a nice controversial one – do you think kids should be allowed Mobiles? I bring this up in the context of the upcoming Santa-related day, and the likelihood that many, many “kids” (come to that definition in a minute) will be getting Mobile devices amongst their presents.
Now, I would define a “kid” as someone up to age 12, after which point they become a ‘teenager’ at 13. So I am asking, should kids up to 12 yrs old be allowed Mobiles? Also, setting aside the health implications (or not) as there may be, this is more of a moral question – should we be allowing our children (kids) to have mobile devices?
My thinking is NO. Why? Well, living in the UK I see daily an increasing trend of our children up growing up too quickly. Don’t get me wrong, Mobile usage/ownership isn’t the cause of this per se, but I think it’s a really good indicator of how fast parents are willing to let children grow up. Since Pay-as-you-go has existed (which helpfully combats the potential financial penalty of a child having unlimited calls/texts on a contract!), I have witnessed a gradual easing of strictness, and growing permissiveness, amongst those parents/guardians of kids, to let them use mobile devices.
And it’s everywhere – in the media, their peers, online and offline – pretty much anywhere you look, younger and younger kids are being targeted. Is there even a cut-off any more, when you can buy baby toys that essentially look exactly like a Mobile??
I know there are safety benefits to allowing kids to use Mobile devices – both from a communications and also location perspective, but could this be achieved in other ways? Certainly. Would it be ‘cool’? Probably not.
If as a society we are eroding our kids’ “child-like innocence” and delivering Mobile tech in at ages where many of us used to be out playing on our bikes etc, are we driving headlong in to a society where we have a bunch of non-active, mobile-coveting, social networking fiends for children? Your thoughts, most welcome…..
