My First Mobile... Now At Eight Years Of Age
from the hook-'em-young dept
There have been plenty of stories about how mobile phone companies have been targeting younger and younger customers (gotta keep the growth numbers up), and that's meant the average age at which a person gets their mobile phone has been dropping consistently. However, it's still a bit of a surprise to find out that (at least in the UK), the average kid gets his or her first mobile phone at the age of eight (in the US it's 12). At this rate, maybe it won't be that long before we're handing out phones to newborn babies. Still, there are some concerns that, perhaps the mobile phone acts as too strong a security blanket for children -- making it way too easy to call a parent for help, rather than learning to take care of themselves. Of course, those claims should be backed up with some real data, but it still will be quite interesting to see how a generation that (literally) grew up using mobile phones turns out differently than those before them.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
What about Mobile Crime Units?
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/news/20050421ic01.htm
As communication technologies become ubiquitous, won't it become ever easier to form ad hoc crime groups like this?
[ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]
Add Your Comment
Add A Reply