Back when Charlotte first started kindergarten several years ago, I wondered aloud in the old BKO Lounge if we should get her a cell phone. At the time, a phone called Firefly, had just appeared on the market. The phones had limited functionality — some pre-programmable buttons to dial just a couple of phone numbers — which seemed to me to be about the right speed for small children who really only need to be able to get in touch with Mom and Dad. The denizens of the Lounge dissuaded me of the idea. Kindergarten kids these days are rarely out of the sight of a supervising adult who can call in an emergency, and the argument was also made that it might foster a bit too much clinginess if a child could call his or her parents at any time. I was persuaded and decided that we’d revisit the idea of a cellphone when Charlotte was older.
Well, she’s older. And the world is a very different place than it was four years ago. This Fast Company blog post says that 20% of American 8-year-olds now have cell phones, and that the percentage rockets to 50% by age 10. By age 12, nearly 80% of American children have their own cell phones. And, the research says, they use more of the feature set of contemporary smartphones: children are more likely to make use of the built-in cameras, play the games, use the MP3 player functionality, and, of course, text messaging. This article from the Boston Globe’s Sunday magazine even looks at the idea that children as young as 3 can have developmental benefits from playing with the iPhone. According to that article, the “Educational” category of iPhone apps on iTunes is becoming a repository of all sorts of games and activities for smaller children.
For quite some time, whenever the discussion of “When can I have a cell phone, Daddy?” has come up with Charlotte, my default answer has been “When you’re twelve”. That answer comes from the assumption that she wouldn’t be independent enough to have a legitimate need for a cellphone any sooner than that. However, we’ve definitely crossed a threshold this year where there are some activities and events that are “drop-offs”: birthday parties are now decidedly “no parents” unless the inviting parent specifically asks you to stay. Ditto for both of the Halloween parties Charlotte went to last week. Her dance lessons have become a drop-off as well. In all these cases, we’re comfortable with the situation because of the presence of responsible adults, but it represents the beginning of a change that will only continue to increase, with a corresponding decrease in the presence of adults.
The FC post is based on this post from A.C. Nielsen, which actually did the study. As one might expect from a Nielsen study, the results are framed for their target audience, the people who buy and sell advertising in the media, so much of what they have to say is about the “new opportunities” created by handing a new advertising medium over to an easily-persuaded consumer, but one area that I think needs to be looked at is the section where they note what a terrible job parents do in terms of restricting usage and setting limitations for cell phone use. All those stories of children racking up massive overtime charges don’t come out of nowhere. Nielsen says that more than half of parents who give their kids cell phones NEVER use the built-in parental controls, and even among those parents who DO use the controls the percentages of people using things like time-of-day limits, download restrictions, and allocating minutes hover in the 20% range.
When I think about giving Charlotte a cell phone and the possible implications of that, I look to her computer usage as a reference to guess what her phone use profile might be like. She’s discovered sites like Webkinz and Club Penguin and likes to use them, but the idea that they represent a place where she can communicate with other people seems a little bit lost on her. Even though these sites are intended to be social networking, for her they are places to play solo games, not to chat with other kids. Eight-year-olds haven’t quite figured out that part where they self-organize into cliques, and her only-child status has acted on her in a way that she can be quite removed from bonding with other kids. So it’s possible, I think, that giving her a phone without all the bells and whistles of the latest generation of smartphones could work for its intended use. Still, I’m feeling like 10 is probably closer to the point of no return than either 8 or 12.
