NationStates Jolt Archive

Barely 10 years ago you would rarely see anyone with a mobile phone. They tended to be chunky, brick like objects limited to businesses and governments because of their high prices. Then it all changed and suddenly mobile phones became common place. Everyone from the 5 year old toddler next door to your grandma decided they wanted one of these devices. They became trendy accessories for teenagers. They have been elevated to multi media devices - cameras, games consoles, video cameras.

But to what extent is this a good thing?

Firstly why does anyone under the age of 16 actually need a mobile phone? They are at school for estimately 2/3 of the year so any emergency can be dealt with by the school. It is this age range that have been greatly effected by the mobile phone craze and it is perhaps doing them the greatest amount of damage.

There are the health effects: some studies have pointed out that mobile phones emit a radiation that could damage the brain of a child during their formative years. However these studies were inconclusive.

Then there are the costs which a child cannot be trusted to effectively control - I have heard many stories (and encountered some it first hand) of how children under the age of 18 have been amounting bills of over £100 per month through over use of texting and phoning their friends for prolonged and likely unnecessary periods. The social pressures on children to buy the newest phone is also causing great expenditure - children and their parents may be spending somewhere in the region of £100 to £500 every 2 to 3 months in order to keep up with the technological (and social) advantages. I have witnessed this first hand - my younger sister purchased a phone 3 months earlier which of course was quickly outdated. She then proceeded to break the mobile phone so that she could buy the latest version. Now my sister is a spoilt little brat but there are similar stories from other people I know. Then there are things like ring tunes, mobile phone covers etc etc which children are paying lots for. Take mobile phone covers - my father is the Financial Director of a company that makes plastic moulding machines. He informed me the other day that mobile phone covers would cost a company no more than £1 each to produce. Yet these covers are going for prices such as £15 in most shops, an extortionate price when you consider that the market these covers are aimed it is children.

These phones are having an effect in the school room too. Children are refusing to turn their mobiles off and so they are going off in the middle of lessons which will only provoke conflict between the teacher and the pupil in question. This can only disrupt the education of all the pupils in the classroom. Exams are finding it difficult to cope - children refuse to hand over their phones at the beginning of the exam and so are increasing their risk of being thrown out of the exam. If a mobile goes off in an exam, it is also disruptive to all the people attempting to concrete on their task.

Finally children are the most susceptible to the newly born crime of mobile phone theft. Theft for mobile phones has become increasingly wide spread and it is children who the easiest prey for these bandits who know that there is a large market these new technological commodities. With this increases the risk of a child being seriously hurt by theives who take their mobiles from them.

This leads to me to believe that it is time to place an age limit on mobile phone purchases. Children are too susceptible to the profit making schemes of the mobile phone companies and as such should be removed from harms way until they are old enough to understand the financial consequences of owning such a device.

And what of the rest of us? Well many adults need mobile phones for emergencies (as their movements are far less predictable than those of children) and for business reasons and so any limitation there is probably unnecessary. Most of the mobile phone industry is now propelled along by attractive baubles rather than any real technological advances. For instance there is the camera phone, an object which I admit to dislike. I think the fact that many can simply snap a photo of you with such ease is a violation of privacy. Of course the quality of the images is also terrible. The same can be said for video phones.

I have a mobile for phone calls and a home phone for the internet, it's cheaper this way as everyone I know has mobiles.

I think mobile phones are a good idea

as for under 16 year olds, as i am, it is not generally considered that the school should take responsibility for everything, i wouldnt give them my arangements for whats happening in the evening , or my friends messages i need.
I can see the point that children under 12 really dont need one and for them
its a fasion statement, and as many a time i have said to my parents i would be more happy with a CB radio than a phone.

Mobile phones as a social value are good though, you can contact people at last minutes or hours before to check things and asume that they will get the message.

but social value is hard as, I have as you have, overheard someone who spent £900, yes people a child of 13 spent £900 on phone calls and those damn cheats at napster.

I do though disagree that an age limit should be imposed, as anyway with me it was my mum who bought the phone when i was 12 and i have never changed it since, but the really the descion of when you should be considered responsible enough to own a phone is ultimately your parents.

On the subject of theft , really the people who get their phones stolen are the town/school idiots who also managed to get thier own head stolen apart from the fact it was attached to them. considering many i know, i'm not too sure about whether their head is on their body after all the damn weed they smoke.

My view on phones is a bit vague as i am a child and i really am quite apathetic on the subject of phones as there are bigger fish to chase.

There are totally too many phones about at the moment, and it's only going to get worse. I despise all these companies that advertise shite ringtones and crappy wallpaper images for phone; not only are they blatantly targeting children, but they also serve to make the world a far more annoying place - with kids on the bus cycling through all the new ringtones they've got to show their friends. Also the integration of other technology such as mp3, radio, and video has meant that I now have to put up with rude people playing Britney Spears through crappy tinny speakers in public places. And it's only going to get more annoying once people start getting films/ Tv on them.
For once I really do hope that the rumors about mobiles making people infertile are true, just think - a whole generation of rude people effectivly neutered, never to pass on their 'rude' genes. :D

yeh death to that frog and his chums! :mad:

I'm 18 and I don't have a cell/mobile phone (wish I did though). It's a craze that may seem like a fad or unnecessary but it really does come in handy. Regarding people under 16, I hardly thinks it's a necessity but like I said, it's handy to those who need it.

Surely the financial problems posed here can be solved just through parental control, a pay as you go phone, or limited monthly bill stops kids running up bills into the £100s of pounds, and as long as the parents refuse to buy the kids new phones every couple of months then there's not a lot they can do about it, it may be frustating for the teenagers in question, and there may be peer pressure, but put an age limit on phones and that pressure will increase. If they "need" the latest ringtone so urgently then they could always just get a satuday job to buy such things.

Curse.



Next?

I only hate cell phones when they are given to people too stupid to use them.

if you take into consideration the number of people who have been saved by having a cell phone with them when disaster struck you might change your mind and think they are a boon.

I only hate cell phones when they are given to people too stupid to use them.
Hehe, my brother has a Bluetooth headset/earpiece that he has no idea how to use. With an excited giggle he asked me, "Can I accept calls on this too?"

If children have cell phones, it's likely through one of two methods.

1) A parent purchases phone for child.

In this case, well, if a £900 charge arrives, I'd bet you £10 that the child won't have said phone next month. In any case, here it is the parent's decision.

2) A child purches phone for himself.

Here I guess you could blame the phone company, but if they're willing to let a minor sign a phone contract, its company risk. If the child decides on a pay-as-you-go phone, it is the child's money to spend as she or he deems fit.

In either case I cannot blame a company for having an effective marketing scheme. Though I agree that the abundance of cell phones have become a nuisance, that fact really is not justification to deny cell phones to minors.

There's no question that cell phones were and are a great idea and a very handy one at that. As a former owner of a cell phones, i can tell you the pro's outweigh the cons. I was forced to cancel my service when i lost my job, so I've been without one for a long while now, and it does create quite a problem considering all of society is connected... except for me.

If you consider the implications of such a large group of people who can instantly connect in case of emergency, or can contact each other despite where the person is, how can a cell phone be a burden?

As far as finacial implications, you claim ringtones and wallpapers and games are detrimental, but if you think about it, society will target children and young adults through other medias too, and often at higher prices. If you look at the price of video game systems and their games, you realize paying 2 dollars for a game on your phone is chump change in comarison to the 300 dollars it costs just for the newest gaming system, and then another 50-60 dollars for a game... A SINGLE game. That's what many of us pay for our phones after rebates. Plus, if texting or imaging with cameras become costly, enroll in your service provider's text or imaging plan, which usually costs between 5 and 10 dollars a month, compared to the 100 pounds you quoted earlier.

As far as I'm concerned, I think mobil media can only get better from here, and is worth every precious penny if the implications are considered in the right light.

mobiles have saved countless lives of injured people by getting them help quickly.

definately a benefit

mobiles can be seen as a natural progression from fixed line home (and business) phones. And i much prefer using my old, clapped out phone, to trying to find an old, clapped out phone box- which more often then not stink of urine. To be honest, ive no idea how to use phoneboxes, and I really couldnt care less. Admittedly, some people are annoying, using their phones... but anyone with that lack of social ettiquette is bound to annoy you in some other way, so theres not relly very much you can do about it.

I think mobile phones are handy-dandy devices that, used responsibly, don't cause any major problems.

I've had my mobile for 15 years (yes that's right I had a brick). It does it's job. I don't allow it to do more.
The possible risks of phone use have not been tested. It's unethical to fry kids brains with RF radiation and no empirical evidence for damage can be gathered any other way. The output power is very low at peak and it's pulsed so actual power is negligible. You are saturated with more RF if you live near Crystal palace TV and radio transmitter but no one suggests pulling that down.
Either way my kids text more than phone (TXT mr tn phn) And the inverse square rule saves them from pretty much all the RF.

But like I said it's a tool. Use it then turn it off. If people will use phones in class or cinemas or restaurants then we need local jammers to stop phones working. Can't be too difficult to arrange. but you can't ban people from owning these things next it'll be walkman's cos of the nasty tinny noise they make!

I'm under 16 and only use my mobile to let my parents and my friends know where i am. But i don't see the point of spending hundreds of pounds on new phones that pointlessly take photos and have such "fab" games. A seperate console and camera would be much better.

mobiles have saved countless lives of injured people by getting them help quickly.


Thats true, I dont deny but how often do people find themselves in a situation where

a) they are in a condition to use the phone (could someone who had been knocked down by a car use his mobile for example)
b) there is no one else around who could make the emergency call

I think such situations are going to be few and far between and will mostly occur to adults.

I'm under 16 and only use my mobile to let my parents and my friends know where i am. But i don't see the point of spending hundreds of pounds on new phones that pointlessly take photos and have such "fab" games. A seperate console and camera would be much better.

I agree there. If I wanted a camera I would spend £50 on a decent one rather than an extra £100 on a mobile phone that happens to have some sort of poor quality camera attachment. Equally I would rather spend the £80 on a GameCube than the £150 on an N-Gage.

Firstly why does anyone under the age of 16 actually need a mobile phone? They are at school for estimately 2/3 of the year so any emergency can be dealt with by the school. It is this age range that have been greatly effected by the mobile phone craze and it is perhaps doing them the greatest amount of damage.
I agree. Many parents have given their children cells in the post 9/11 world, but they are not being used responsibly. A colleague of mine took a phone from a student recently and answered it because it kept ringing repeatedly in class. Turned out it was his mother asking him to pick up milk on the way home from school. She got a piece of my colleague's mind, I can tell you. Also, phones with text messaging are being used as a cheat aid on tests. This of course does not take into account students who make/take calls in class.

There are the health effects: some studies have pointed out that mobile phones emit a radiation that could damage the brain of a child during their formative years. However these studies were inconclusive. I wouldn't doubt it... though there may be some bias on my part. However, the students who use them most inappropriately are certainly not doing well in class, though this apparently related 'fact' may be simply because they are not paying attention.

Then there are the costs which a child cannot be trusted to effectively control - I have heard many stories (and encountered some it first hand) of how children under the age of 18 have been amounting bills of over £100 per month through over use of texting and phoning their friends for prolonged and likely unnecessary periods. The social pressures on children to buy the newest phone is also causing great expenditure - children and their parents may be spending somewhere in the region of £100 to £500 every 2 to 3 months in order to keep up with the technological (and social) advantages. I have witnessed this first hand - my younger sister purchased a phone 3 months earlier which of course was quickly outdated. She then proceeded to break the mobile phone so that she could buy the latest version. Now my sister is a spoilt little brat but there are similar stories from other people I know. Then there are things like ring tunes, mobile phone covers etc etc which children are paying lots for. Take mobile phone covers - my father is the Financial Director of a company that makes plastic moulding machines. He informed me the other day that mobile phone covers would cost a company no more than £1 each to produce. Yet these covers are going for prices such as £15 in most shops, an extortionate price when you consider that the market these covers are aimed it is children.Blame a materialistic society, and the parents who purchase such items for their children. Of course, if mom or dad bought a phone that had to have its minutes refilled monthly, and only bought the minimum number of minutes for the phone, that might cut both costs and the amount of time the handset is glued to one's child's head.

These phones are having an effect in the school room too. Children are refusing to turn their mobiles off and so they are going off in the middle of lessons which will only provoke conflict between the teacher and the pupil in question. This can only disrupt the education of all the pupils in the classroom. Exams are finding it difficult to cope - children refuse to hand over their phones at the beginning of the exam and so are increasing their risk of being thrown out of the exam. If a mobile goes off in an exam, it is also disruptive to all the people attempting to concrete on their task. And I thought this was only happening in the US...

Finally children are the most susceptible to the newly born crime of mobile phone theft. Theft for mobile phones has become increasingly wide spread and it is children who the easiest prey for these bandits who know that there is a large market these new technological commodities. With this increases the risk of a child being seriously hurt by theives who take their mobiles from them.This is one of the many reasons cell phones, walkmen, iPods and other electronic trendy toys ought not to be in school.

This leads to me to believe that it is time to place an age limit on mobile phone purchases. Children are too susceptible to the profit making schemes of the mobile phone companies and as such should be removed from harms way until they are old enough to understand the financial consequences of owning such a device.This would not work in the cases of parents who buy them. And some of the parents take no responsibility: recently, in NYC, a father tried to sue the Dept. of Ed because his daughter failed two classes. When he looked at the phone bill, he found she'd been texting during those classes. Reaction? Not to punish the child, but to rail at the school for not confiscating her phone or noticing that she was being inattentive.

(How about kicking oneself for not being aware of the child's grades, not demanding to see tests, essays, homeworks.....)

And what of the rest of us? Well many adults need mobile phones for emergencies (as their movements are far less predictable than those of children) and for business reasons and so any limitation there is probably unnecessary. Most of the mobile phone industry is now propelled along by attractive baubles rather than any real technological advances. For instance there is the camera phone, an object which I admit to dislike. I think the fact that many can simply snap a photo of you with such ease is a violation of privacy. Of course the quality of the images is also terrible. The same can be said for video phones.

I had a heck of a time finding a non-video phone. A phone is a phone; a digital camera is a digital camera; to combine them is folly.

My cell is always on my person (hidden, of course, from my students) but never ON unless I am making a call. It was a boon on 9/11 because my colleagues and I were able to contact loved ones and assure them of our safety; it has been a boon as I regularly drive long distances and as a woman alone, I would not set out without one to call the AAA or to check in with family about ETAs or to ask them for alternate routes when there is a 23 mile backup in front of me. ;) I have a plan for 180 minutes a month and have never come NEAR using them up EVER.

I do not use a mobile phone. I dont like the idea of being trackeable all day long.I say: If anybody wants to reach me, leave a message at my place or a memo at work place. Or come meet me in person.

I used a cell phone a short period of time, but did not get used to the idea of people calling me for no aparent reason, or "pinging" the phone, or sending intelligible text messages.Besides its expensive as hell.


Im a go for privacy. No to cell phones.

At my last job, we used the cel phone exclusively for all business due to a special rate. I had the damn hot thing on my ear for hours every day.

Now I'm my own boss-I have one for emergencies and calls that must be made or taken. I dont gab on it. I dont like to talk while I'm driving-thats alone time when I can think and hate to be annoyed.
Too many people have cell phone and they ARE ALWAYS ON THEM.
Their cute rings irritate the hell out of me.

I want to force the phone into one of their orifices and then call them when they are in the Emergency Room having it removed.

My cell is always on my person (hidden, of course, from my students) but never ON unless I am making a call. It was a boon on 9/11 because my colleagues and I were able to contact loved ones and assure them of our safety; it has been a boon as I regularly drive long distances and as a woman alone, I would not set out without one to call the AAA or to check in with family about ETAs or to ask them for alternate routes when there is a 23 mile backup in front of me. ;) I have a plan for 180 minutes a month and have never come NEAR using them up EVER.


We had a hell of a time on 9/11 and for several days after using cel phone in NJ. I think it was a combination of losing towers on the WOrld Trade Center and everyone was using them at the same time.
I agree though-my usage is also occasional or emergency. Even when we have free weekends and tons of minutes- we rarely use them.

We had a hell of a time on 9/11 and for several days after using cel phone in NJ. I think it was a combination of losing towers on the WOrld Trade Center and everyone was using them at the same time.
I agree though-my usage is also occasional or emergency. Even when we have free weekends and tons of minutes- we rarely use them.
We use this in the telecommunication major as an example of cellular lockout (using the standard blocking algorithm) high usage combined with the loss of a few high traffic antennae were deffinatly most of the cause