Don't give kids phones - a marketing opportiunity perhaps?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Some top science bods are saying that we shouldn't give kids phones coz it turns their brains to mush or something.

How long before we see phones with no mics or speakers with cartoon characters on them which can only be used for txting?

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 20:55 (twenty years ago)

would this work? I'm not sure. But the point is that the phones are only dangerous if held next to the head, no?

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 21:12 (twenty years ago)

Or if repeated bashed on the head/groin area.

― Thermo Thinwall (Thermo Thinwall), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 21:19 (twenty years ago)

"oi kid, give me your phone or i'll turn your brains to mush"

― The Bigger Kids On Crack (blueski), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 22:19 (twenty years ago)

there was another news story recently on a similar theme - phone companies taking old phones and using the non-phone capabilites to run other things - clocks, radios, mp3 players, er, other things. a lot of them are java capable and can run little java applications quite happily. how you get the midlet onto the phone without phone capabilites is a bit tricky though (preload them i guess)

do you think those people complaining about mobile phone masts also complain about lack of reception?

― koogs (koogs), Thursday, 13 January 2005 13:41 (twenty years ago)

I was thinking about this yesterday. I think there's a massive market out there for text only phones. Kids can't really afford to use phones for calls anyway (unless their parents settle the bill for them) so most of them seem to only use them for text/downloading games/ringtones. All of which you can still do with a phonecall-less mobile.

I guess it'll end up as a kids version of a PDA

― jellybean (jellybean), Thursday, 13 January 2005 13:45 (twenty years ago)

there were little text-only / pda devices available a while ago but i guess they didn't catch on. didn't use the mobile phone network for communication though, had limited range and could only talk to other similar devices. forget the name. alphabetic keys on the front, dayglo colors... blackberries for kids really.

um, not what i was thinking of but...

http://www.mobiles.co.uk/images/gadgets/magicmesshandlogos300.jpg

http://www.mobiles.co.uk/ukgadgets/magic-messenger-text-message.html

― koogs (koogs), Thursday, 13 January 2005 13:56 (twenty years ago)

Cybiko

http://www.cybiko.com/index_uk.asp

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Thursday, 13 January 2005 14:00 (twenty years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.