Last week, my cousin sent me a snapchat.
Okay, I know that sounds completely normal, a lot of people talk to their cousins on the daily. So let me rephrase that. Last week, my ten year-old cousin sent me a snapchat from her own ipad.
Does anybody else see the problem with that sentence? Why are the words "ten year old" and "own ipad" placed together? Correct me if I am wrong, though I'm totally not, but I think that is a bit young to be making the craziness of technology part of your daily life.
I witnessed both my cousins, eight and ten years-old, receive their ipad minis for Christmas, squeal with high-pitched excitement, and then immediately start downloading apps. My cousin even asked me if I had specific games on my phone, and then yelled at me for not having it because "everybody is playing it!"
I don't know when this happened, but all of a sudden it seem like too many elementary schoolers have a cell phones, two tablets and five of every generational ipod.
According to ABC news, a recent study performed by vouchercloud reveled that the average age for a first time cell phone user is six years old, and that by the age of seven, 53 percent of American children will have owned a cell phone.
Yes, you read that correctly, six years old. SIX. You are practically still in the womb when you're six. What on earth do you need a phone for at such a young age?
When asked this question, 31 percent of the parents who took place in the survey said they wanted to reach their child easily, 25 percent wanted their kids to keep in touch with friends and family, and 20 percent said they felt their kids needed it to keep up with their friends.
TO THIS I HAVE TWO RESPONSES
One, I don't recall how much knowledge I possessed at 11 or 12, but I can tell you right now it sure as hell wasn't a lot. Not enough to justify having a phone that can call, e-mail, snapchat, text and facetime. I get the importance of safety, and a perhaps a regular, flip cell phone for emergencies is understandable. But if you're in fourth grade and you have an instagram with 458 pictures on it, my girl, you need to fall back. You don't need a smartphone with a billion apps on it for a phone that originally was given to serve a purpose of being used only for emergency phone calls.
Two, to the parents that said they felt their child needed it to keep up with their friends: are you kidding me? I got my first smartphone when I was 18 and going off to college. COLLEGE. Sure, there were times in high school when having a smartphone would have been fun, but but did I fall behind? My friends didn't just drop me because I couldn't snap them or be part of the group chat.
Matthew Wood, the managing director at vouchercloud, commented in an article about the survey saying that because technology is naturally being exposed to children at younger and younger ages, its going to become apart of their lives.
It's not necessarily the bad thing it's often made out to be; children learn about taking responsibility for things, looking after their possessions and they are much easier to contact if needed, but it's crucial that they use this technology in a way that doesn't affect their normal social skills and growth.
Am I right in saying this or am I just old fashioned? Suddenly I feel as if I have reached the age where I am looking down at the younger generations, shaking my head and thinking, "what in Gods name are they doing? That's not how we did it as children so they must be doing it wrong!"
Am I now the old, angry grandma swinging her cane angrily at the young generations for doing everything wrong, or am I right in saying that the age of six is too young to start being trusted with a proper cell phone or tablet? In this case, I would rather be the old, angry grandma, because having a cell phone is a fairly large responsibility, and in my mind, you need to earn that responsibility rather than have it handed to you.
As for the elementary schools who are begging for smartphones: ya'll come from a time when if you drop your phone, the phone breaks. I come from a time when if you drop the phone it breaks the floor.
I started from the bottom of the indestructible Nokias and worked my way up to the delicate wonders of iphones and androids. God forbid that it took me longer than six years.
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