My Take: Cell Phones and Kids

"What on Earth are elementary students doing carrying cell phones to school? Better yet, why do parents think their child needs one? Our children today need to focus on education while in school and save the conversations for after-school activities."
--Thanks to Juliann Williams from Anderson, IN

Yep. I exhibited some pretty strong thoughts at reading that one, too.

By now I've established that I work in the wireless industry and don't much care for cell phones due to people using them with blatant disrespect regarding their usage.

Just like I said yesterday: Just because you have the right to do so, doesn't mean that you should forget all of your other morals (assuming that is, that the person has some), manners, and that it gives you a free ticket to go over the line with it.

Anyways, let's look at some cold, hard numbers:

o A recent U.S. study shows that fifty percent of 12 to 17 year-olds have cell phones
o The average cell phone user spends about $87 dollars per month on their cell phone
o Thirty three percent of teens have text messaged with a phone
o Twenty five percent of teens have used their wireless phone to connect to the Internet
o Trust me, by my experience, that the average teenager does not spend $87 per month on their cell phone. This figure is much higher (which, in turn, skews the statistics for everyone.


If I had a dollar for every parent who called in and said "yeah, my child ran up a bunch of charges..." I would be able to spend $87 a month on a cell phone. This last condition would also be able to be met if I were getting government subsidies in California.

Let's throw another quote in here at this point:

Lindsay Shepardson of New York comments: "I was sixteen when I got my first cell phone and I think as long as you're responsible you can get a cell phone when you're like twelve years old."

Emphasis is mine.

Remember when I said last night that children shouldn't be allowed to raise children? Yep. Anyone who gives what should be an intelligent answer to a growing problem by using the work "like" outside of the traditional grammatical sense should, well, be smacked with a newspaper and their opinion (most likely) their opinion dismissed categorically.

I mean, really, when you were twelve years old, were you ready to handle a cell phone with 2 dozen features, third party content provider charges, understanding of various multimedia charges, and the like. Cell phones are that age are like sex: If you're not ready for the entire package, don't even get your feet wet.

During the opening 6 weeks of enforcing a new ordinance, Chicago Police officers issued 841 tickets recently to motorists. Yep. Twenty-one tickets a day. And studies also show that these kinds of drivers are much more likely to have a serious car accident than their non-cell phone using counterparts. Numbers escape me right now.

Upon reading this study, a colleague of mine replied in two words that say it all:

"Well, duh."

Let's put these two together. Kids are being raised by parents that impress upon them that certain behaviors, such as those exhibited by the above cell phone statistics, are alright. When they grow up, who's to say that the kind of situations that we're having today with drivers who use them aren't going to increase and, in all likelihood, get worse?

I would like to end on a note on an instance I had as a floor representative several months ago. She made more sense than most people do on a daily basis. This person indicated that she would never give her kid a cell phone, but she decided instead to give them walkie talkies.

A perfect answer to a not-so-perfect problem.