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.
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  1. identicon
    dorpus, 20 Apr 2005 @ 7:55pm

    What about Mobile Crime Units?

    A group of seven youths from Kanagawa, including five 21-year-olds, an 18-year-old boy, and an 18-year-old girl, has been arrested for travelling through 14 prefectures and Tokyo in a rented van and commiting burglary 573 times. The group would stop their vehicle at homes with expensive cars, break in by burning down the door with a blowtorch, stealing a total of 55 million yen in cash (~$500,000) and 910 designer handbags worth 458 million yen.

    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?

    link to this | view in thread ]


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