Mobiles targeting children
Monday January 11, 2010
Mobiles are quickly beginning to infiltrate the children's market and predicted to be the "must have" for children as young as five as new developments and models are launched into the market.
Currently the children's mobiles market is expanding with a 17 per cent rise in phone ownership for children in the last three years according to a survey in kids aged seven- to 10-years-old while one in four kids are already responsible for their own phone.
So is this just another marketing campaign by the mobile phone manufacturers to expand their already massive consumer base and is a mobile far too much responsibility for children this young? Apparently it depends on what kind of mobile you buy.
Many manufacturers of these new phones are quick to point out that these mobiles are not for social use but are a security measure that parents can take to ensure that their children are easily accessible and located. For example, the youngest end of the market with children around four years and up are targeted by brands such as Firefly and Teddyfone which have strict capabilities and GPS trackers for the parents access.
Advertised as "child safety phones", these phones offer capabilities including:
- 10 times less emissions than a conventional mobile phone
- Child-like appearance and design
- Limited functionality with no texting or downloading and no screen
- Automated SOS alert feature
- Only allows calls to four preprogrammed numbers
- Child tracking facility and parent activated child monitor option that allows the parent or guardian to listen through the phone to wherever the child may be
Of course, the question of kids and mobiles raises several questions and concerns from the potential medical side effects to such early exposure to mobile phones to the social impact of giving these devices to children. This is particularly true if the mobiles chosen for the child are of the modern range with all the associated features.
Some predicted negative issues include the responsibility put upon children as young as five, the potential alienation of children from their parents and the social stigma than is often associated with children's use of such devices. Basically, will the rise in popularity of children's mobiles lead to a "the Have's and the Have Not's" style situation.
Of course, this is all before taking the medical effects into consideration with children's skulls being thinner in density than adults, meaning there would be less protection and resistance against any radiation waves, which remains an unproven theory in the mobiles industry.
However, the federally funded Australian Centre for Radio Frequency Bioeffects Research has stated that its official view is that mobiles do not cause cancer while the World Health Organisation 2005 study results conclude no convincing evidence of a link between brain cancer and mobiles or mobile phone tower stations.
On the other hand, a 2006 Swedish National Institute for Working Life study claimed to have identified a link between high mobiles use and brain tumours, in particular for mobiles users in the development stage of their teens and younger.
Overall the children's market for mobiles is expanding at a fast rate as parents demand for a tool that will allow them to monitor their children at the same time as children demand far more technological means of communicating.
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