Children with Phones?

 

            According to a survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, the majority of teenagers get their first cell phones when they reach the age of twelve or thirteen. Many believe that it is okay to get their twelve year old children cell phones, some even younger, but why? Children at that age do not need them. Kids under the age of twelve should not own cell phones because they can develop an unhealthy addiction to them that may have many negative impacts on their lives.

            First, children at the age of twelve or younger will become obsessed with their phones and forget about everything that is going on around them. Many get anxious when they forget their phones at home and are too caught up in that fact that their hands are not on a cell phone that they might not enjoy what they are doing at all. This can be a big problem considering that “a Japanese study revealed that children with cell phones often do not make friends with their less-savvy peers” (news.ufl.edu). This study comes to show that when children begin to grow an obsession and “love” for cell phones, they may become more anti-social. At the ages of ten through twelve, kids should be focusing on making friends, not having their eyes glued on cell phones. Also, “a Hungarian study found that three-fourths of children had mobile phones” (news.ufl.com). This number is extremely large; this generation kids will be getting iPhone 5’s at the age of ten. When kids begin to understand that there is more use to a phone than just making calls, such as texting, apps/games, social media, etc., they begin to slowly cut off from the real world. For example, social media. Social media is a very broad topic. When it is broken down, words like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook appear. . Kids do have accounts for such apps like those and that is one of the main ways people in general can get attached to their phones, but being that young can be even more difficult to stop playing on the phone, which can lead to the children not being mentally, emotionally, and socially healthy. Also, as kids, they do not really understand how cruel and mean people can be on the internet and they may get severely bullied online from an extremely young age.

            In addition, kids who do receive cell phones at a young age end up being very anti-social and dependent on their cell phones. To illustrate, there was a girl named Amy Peterson. Her parents had gotten her the first version of the iPhone when she was ten.  Amy constantly nagged her parents to get her it ever since she saw the “magical”, she claims, commercial. Of course, just like anyone else, she was very excited and pleased to have her hands on the coolest new technology. Her parents got it for her, but, made it clear that she only uses it for emergencies, but that message did not really come through to Amy. Once Amy realized that there was more to a phone than just calling, her eyes were constantly attached to her phone. In just one week, she had downloaded about twelve apps and thirty new songs. One issue is that when she had the iPhone, none of her friends had phones quite yet, so she could not call or text them, which strayed her away from them. Amy never got off her phone and her friends did not appreciate that she was so dedicated to her phone, so they ignored her and left. At that point, Amy did not care if she had friends or not, she was convinced that if she just had her phone, she did not need anything or anyone else.  But as mentioned previously, around the ages of ten through twelve, kids should be focusing on friends and enjoy just being a kid and have fun. Amy did not realize that until she was fourteen. Now everyone in Amy’s class has cell phones and since she has all of their numbers, they talk frequently. On the phone that is. They text a lot, as well. Honestly, when they sit together they find it awkward and suddenly feel as if there is nothing to talk about and feel like there has to be a phone attached to their ears to communicate to one another. This story comes to show that, where cell phones may have many advantages, no child at the age of ten or even twelve needs a cell phone. It may, in a way, ruin their social lives.

            Some believe that parents have the right to get their children cell phones, which is true, but do you really want to ruin your child’s social life? This position is weak because there really are not reasons for a ten or eleven year old to get a phone. The most common reason as to why parents get their children cell phones is because most of them say that their kids might have an emergency when they are in school or if the parent is not with them, but there is always a solution. In the matter of an emergency at school, there are always phones at schools in the front office open to students who need it in case of an emergency. Also, at the age of eleven or twelve, I do not really think parents let their kids go to the mall or anywhere else by themselves or with people who do not have phones. Even if they do, there is always mall security or any kind of security to contact. So in any scenario, there will always be a solution.

            To sum up, children under the age of twelve should not own cell phones because they may become obsessed with them and affect their daily lives in an awful way. Children at that age should not be attached to technology and lose the opportunity of living the carefree life as a kid. Next time your kids nag you to get them a phone; will you make the decision to keep them mentally and socially healthy or to teach them to depend on their cell phones?