Kids with Phones

It's been a long time since i did anything on this blog, but today i saw a very insignificant bit of news (or so it seems), it seems Jamie Oliver has done something that i think a lot of parents should do and has banned his 11 y/o girl from having a mobile phone.

I think it's about time parents started to realize that their kids shouldn't be getting mobile phones at an early age. Nearly all of us have a smartphone these days, there doesn't seem to be a lot else worth having anymore, smartphone or not however, every phone seems to have the ability to take, send and receive pictures, they also all seem to be able to access the internet via WiFi or mobile data connection.

This for a teenager (and younger) is open to MASSIVE abuse, we all know what you have access to with modern mobile phones and it doesn't matter what measures/filters are in place, kids see that as a challenge, an obstacle to be overcome and more often than not, they manage to find a way. I mean let's face it, it's almost impossible to police the entire internet and every social media website.

Having smartphones at an early age just opens up all sorts of doors to kids that shouldn't be available to them yet, they have access to 18+ material at their fingertips and there's no way to stop that, as well as the adult content available, they also have the ability to send and receive pictures, i don't think i need to elaborate on that, i think we all know what the average teenager is like, we were all there ourselves once...

Aside from all of those problems there is also the simple fact that a smartphone in hand or up to the side of a kid's face is a massive target for thieves, an easy one at that. Is it really smart for kids to be advertising their very expensive phones at school and out and about?

There is however one or two positive points to a kid/teenager having a mobile phone and that is the ability to keep in touch with friends and family and is very good to have in case of emergency (hopefully it wouldn't come to that for most kids) 

This got me thinking...

I remember one of my very first phones when i was a teenager, it was the Nokia 3310 (most of us have probably owned one at some point) and all it could really do was send and receive TEXT messages and phone-calls...

Instead of having to ban kids having mobile phones, why not make newer mobile phones that only have SMS and the ability to speak to people?

There should be some kind of law that permits a kid having a mobile phone with a camera & access to the internet. Let's face it, there are plenty of other things we have to wait to be 18+ to use or view, so why not do it with smartphones too? 


That would mean that as soon as they were old enough they could have a full-featured mobile phone, but up until then they only have the ability to call and text. This would limit exposure to things they should not be seeing or doing yet. 

I know it's probably impossible to enforce, but i think that it's disturbing to see the kinda stuff that kids have the ability to view these days, i mean not so long ago i heard that an 8 year old boy raped a girl! He shouldn't even know what sex is at that age! (well.. not much about it anyway)

I know i sound like an old git saying that kids shouldn't have smartphones, but when you think about what they enable kids to access, it's actually a bit disturbing... give them simple phones that allow nothing but text messages and calls, this will also lessen the likelihood that they'll get their phones stolen.

What do you think? 

Do you think this is a good idea? 

Let me know!