These days, more and more children are being provided with cellphones from their parents at a very young age. I work at a summer camp where children as young as 9 years of age have been caught using their cellphones. Cellphones are prohibited at Camp Celtic, because to truly experience camping in the wilderness there can't be cellphones....or am I wrong? I really hope not. Most of the time when kids are caught with the phones, they explain that their parents told them to check in with them on a daily basis. Are parents going crazy? You send your child to camp to experience new things and to get away from everyday living, but you tell them to use their highly technological device to communicate with you everyday...hmmm. And if they get homesick, which we all have been, they have a cellphone to call mommy at home which isn't going to help them get over their homesickness and if anything will add to the problem.
I'm very glad that my parents didn't give me a cellphone at age 9 or 10...I wouldn't have been able to a lot of the things I did as a child. Pogs, for example. A great game that was very popular when we were 9-10 years of age. It's long gone. Do kids sit in a circle and compare their phones or text each other instead of experiencing the awesomeness of recess? I may be a little extreme, but I know that more and more kids are getting cellphones at younger ages and it could be possible that the true enjoyment of being a kid is getting disrupted by technological devices like the cellphone.
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I totally agree, I also work at a summer camp and I am constantly having to take cell phones away.. even iPods are being found on the youngest girls who are from 6 to 8 years old.
ReplyDeleteI was told by many of my campers after camp ended that many of them had their cells in their tents and cabins and were constantly on them during down time. It makes me really angry to think that parents would break the rules of camp like that. My kids who talked to their parents on a regular basis were always so much more homesick than the ones who went the two or four weeks without talking to them. I think that it is a bit ridiculous for parents to give their children these devices at such a young age.
I bought my first cell phone myself when I was in third year university and I paid for my own iPod.
I think that if I were given a cell phone earlier it would change my whole perspective on this technology crunch. But really, I could not trust anyone younger than 15 years of age with a cell phone.