Saburo is my seven year old son.  Over the years Saburo has developed a fascination with cell phones, thanks to their prevalence and assumed importance in modern day society.  To cater to this fascination, The STBE and I have allowed him to have our “working” cell phones to play with when we upgraded our units.  The most these phones ever did were serve as hand held game consoles, random picture taking devices or drive-Momma-crazy-with-ring-tones gadgets, and at this very moment Saburo is walking around his Detroit home sporting a broken but functional Motorola Sidekick (courtesy of my grandson Appleseed‘s father) that he uses as an MP3 player.  For the most part Saburo has been content with using the phones as play toys, although periodically he would ask us to activate him so he could call people.  My response to this request has always been no.  My reason is that at his age, everyone he needed to talk to already lived in the house with him, and if he ever needed to talk to someone outside the house there were enough phones available for him to use.  Of course he’s never happy with this answer, but at seven years of age he pretty much has to just grin, bear it and continue to “front” with his Sidekick.

It seems the more advanced technology becomes, the age range of the developer’s demographic lowers.  Gone are the days when V-Tech manufactured programming sated the youth of America’s thirst for gadgetry of their own.  Nowadays it is not uncommon for children as young as four or five to be masters of PS3 or Xbox 360 games that are considered too sophisticated for adults, when just a generation ago Texas Instruments cornered the market on elementary electronics.  Just two generations ago most children’s exposure to computers was a desktop at school, the library, or, if they were fortunate enough, at home.  But not, youth as young as eight or nine  have their own desktops in their rooms equipped with Internet access, if not laptops to tote with them.  So technology is evolving and our children’s interest in it is evolving right along with it, if not faster due to their increased expose to it. And the most prominent culprit of technological preoccupation is undoubtedly the cell phone.  And we’re not talking about the cute little programmable Firefly phones that held Mommy’s number, Daddy’s number and maybe Grandma and Aunt Sally Sue’s.  We’re talking tech savy smartphone joints business executives buy and claim on their taxes as business expenses.

In 2008 IDC reported that approximately 69% of children ages 10 to 14 and 16% of children between the ages of 5 and 9 “own” cell phones, and I am quite sure those numbers have risen immensely in this year.  And with this particular market growing, service companies and manufacturers alike are jumping to makes the devices more attractive by making them more colourful and comprehensive, as well as tailoring service packages which cater to the teen and tween “consumer.”  When the trend initially began, most parents defended their choice to equip their kids with cell phones by stating they were needed in case of an emergency.  But now, the cell phone is most often requested by children as a necessity to keep up with friends, a fashion accessory, status symbol, or simply because everyone else has them and they don’t want to be left out.  But my question is, for children who are supposed to be in school all day — a place that is equipped with phones for emergency purposes, most likely has a “no cell phone” policy and is the place where their friends are anyway — what is the need for any child under the age of 15, maybe 16?  Barring a special set of circumstances where a child will be without supervision of some sort for extended periods of time and there is no other way for them to contact help if need be, to give a child a cell phone below those ages is a distraction in places where their focus should be on the activity at hand.  Most times, that activity is learning.

Another aspect of this issue for me, is repealing the lines of age appropriateness and placing children on the same level as the adult that are supposed to be authority figures.  Just the other day an acquaintance of mine mentioned/bragged the fact that his seven year old niece and nephew now possess iPhones, one of the most sophisticated telecommunication/PDA devices on the market.  A great number of teachers can’t afford iPhones for crying out loud, so considering we as a society judges by a materialistic standard, what esteem would a seven year old have for an instructor who can only afford a Samsung Messenger or LG enV on a MetroPCS plan?  Okay, so maybe that’s speculating a bit too much, but it’s not unfathomable.

More realistically speaking in the realm of age appropriateness, what happened to the boundaries that separated kids from adults?  What happened to saving certain aspect of life for later and giving children something to aspire to rather than allow them to step into our shoes so quickly. Yes, I am aware that we live in a technological age and yes I agree that our children should be encouraged to learn and advance with the times in order to become globally competitive, but… must we encourage them in such ways that develop miniature adults?

Just my buck fiddy.

M. Michelle