Kids with phones? Not so shocking

Posted by TheYank at 7/13/2009 8:05 AM EDT

Over the weekend there was a story in the press here that made it onto the front page of this site, which sort of surprised me. The headline was that half of all 9-year-olds have their own cell phones. When I first saw that story in the Irish newspapers, my reaction was, "This is news?" I just figured that (a) it was a very slow news day and (b) someone somewhere had to justify the money they'd spent carrying out the survey.

You could probably have come up with similar statistics if you had carried out the same survey back in 2001, when my oldest was nine. Then it seemed every kid her age was getting a phone. Why? I have no idea because my wife and I were totally baffled by parents who promoted the phenomenon of the pre-teen texter. I don't know if half of all 9-year-olds had phones then, but I'd bet that at least 60% of all 9-year-old girls did. I didn't pay as much attention to what boys were doing at the time.

{When I saw the story on the front page here, however, it reminded me that just because something is far from surprising to me that doesn't mean that a (mostly) American audience wouldn't find it an eyebrow-raiser. Will have to keep my eyes open a bit wider.}

And what of today's 9-year-olds? Well, now my son is in that age bracket so I'm more tuned into the boys. Still, I see small groups of little girls gathered around, all holding phones. I still have no idea why. However, I at least have some insight into the boys' fascination with phones: they're also mini video game machines.

Two of my son's friends have phones, but no credit, no SIM card. They can't make calls or text, but the phones they have came pre-loaded with some arcade-like games that they like. Well, how can I complain about that? I had a hand-held digital basketball game (can't for the life of me remember what we called those things) when I was young. And the phone is a lot cheaper than the Nintendo DS or whatever. So maybe the 9-year-olds with phones is not quite the shocker it might appear to be.