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Is the age at which children get cellphones getting younger?
Posted by Jehan Latief on 24 May 2011
46% Of children receive their first cellphone at age 12 or 13; 3% of 10-year-olds have owned theirs before their 10th birthday; and only 1% of kids only get their first mobile at age 17. These are some of the statistics that emerged from the Pew Research Centre's study on teens and mobile phones.
"The bulk of teens are 12 or 13 when they get their first cell phone - but remember this applies to teens who are 17 now and got their phones five years ago, as well as current 13 year olds who have had a phone for six months. So this gives us the average for all teens across the past five or so years," said the report.
Digging a bit deeper, it turns out that the age at which children are getting a mobile phone for the first time is dropping. "Younger teens were slightly more likely to get cell phones at younger ages than older teens. None of our 17 year olds got cell phones when they were 10 or younger, while 28% of 12 year olds did."
Here is a summary of some of the statistics:
These results point to more and more kids being online and connected. The research was conducted in 2009, and it would be fascinating to see what the statistics would reflect today. It's only been just under two years, but mobile technology use amongst children has increased rapidly.
Some of the obvious benefits of children owning mobile phones are that parents and children can easily contact each other in an emergency, children have a world of information at their finger tips, and frankly children are going to need to be tech savvy to succeed in the information age.
But while the mobile internet, for example, presents endless advantages , but on the other side of the coin, it may pose dangers for your children as well. It is important that parents make an informed decision when connecting their children, and Mobiflock makes this easier by assisting you with control measures such as keeping costs down, website blocking, and time control to name a few. Have a look at all the features of the Mobiflock parental control service for smartphones here.