Old Enough For A Cell Phone?
They grow up so fast! Cell phone ownership by children is on the rise. T2150/via Flickr hide caption
They grow up so fast! Cell phone ownership by children is on the rise.
T2150/via FlickrHow old were you when you first got a cell phone?
The Pew Internet and American Life Project has been asking that question since 2004 when it found that 18 percent of children age 12 owned a cell phone. By Sept. 2009, the figure jumped to 58 percent. The researchers note "Much of the recent overall growth in cell phone ownership among teens has been driven by uptake among the youngest teens."
I was 15 by the time I owned my first cell phone. My parents grew tired of loaning me theirs and knew that soon I would get behind the wheel of a car. But today, children are being given phones way before their parents have that excuse.
But is it so weird for younger children to have personal phones, or is it a construct for those who were introduced to cell phones when the devices hadn't completely saturated the population? Overall, 83 percent of adults owned a cell phone when surveyed in Dec. 2009 - a figure that has jumped by 18 percentage points since 2004.
I can remember calling home from the neighbor's landline long before I owned a cell phone. I also remember how significant it was to have a phone in your bedroom. Cell phones, though, have made the phone a personal, rather than shared device. What's more, we use them for much more than making calls. Those characteristics are likely reflecting the younger cell phone demographics: as soon as parents deem the child old enough to use the phone, they won't likely be sharing these valuable devices, they'll get their own.