How Young Is Too Young for a Smart Phone?

Cole Lauff

Bunde

Writing 101

10/13/14

How Young Is Too Young For a Smart Phone?

        The progress for more reliable and innovative technology increases almost twice as rapid in America every year. Due to all of the wide varieties of technological products in our markets, consumers are free to carelessly purchase whatever they desire. A constant struggle forms for consumers demanding to access the next trending product, therefore leading to a change and crucial part of our newly developing culture. With the help of the media and adults stressing to purchase these products, children have begun putting these products to their own use, resulting in many early issues during their young development. Because smartphones affect mental, social, and physical health throughout early childhood, children younger than ten should not own or regularly use these sophisticated devices.

Socially, the impact of portable smart phones affects numerous children in many ways, creating a sense of distraction to essential aspects in life. If children are unable to concentrate on their surroundings, they will fall behind on significant opportunity’s life has to offer. The greatest opportunity in early childhood is to embrace everything, having the ability to naturally discover new ideas and situations while simply playing with friends. If children under eleven are not taking advantage of these precious opportunities, they soon will regret their decisions in the future unable to apply early developed skills to anything but their phones. Already people are showing signs of little to no social skill with the people working around them.

 Although Smart phones are useful tools expanding the way people view education, they are not used for the proper use in that matter. Some parents are even using them as a way to distract and manipulate children allowing them free time instead of putting up with all of their constant energy. However, Filip Technologies Inc. tested that “85 percent of parents with children ages 6-12 in their household) do not believe it is appropriate to buy their child a smartphone until they are at least 11-years-old. This is an increase of 21 percent in two years (64 percent in 2012”(Paragraph 1). If the majority of parents in the United States are not satisfied, something must be done to fix the evolving issue. This futuristic pacifier prevents the creativity in children and the capability to discover knowledge on their own. The greatest qualities in all stages of life are the opportunities to escape one’s comfort zone, and expand their personal viewpoints. None of that can be achieved if they spend their time playing games on their phones everyday. Social medias and games found on these devices are time consuming, keeping students from doing important work and required tasks. The cellular devices encourage people to become shy and neglect the people around them. Its important to experience early social skills because if you don’t work on them at a young age you will never learn.

Smart phones are distracting devices that lead to insufficient progress in young student’s weekly educational programs and curriculum. Teachers are finding themselves frustrated, having to confiscate classmate’s phones due to the constant interruptions in class. Smart phones sidetrack kids into staying up late causing them to loose the ability to have energy for the following days. The constant stimulation of the products overworks their undeveloped minds resulting in bad habits towards work and responsibility. Not only have these affected their academic careers, but there exposer to harmful media as well. Students are mentally desensitized by all of the bad influences caused by the unlimited search options of the phones. Although smart phones are extremely helpful for parents to know when and where their kids are at all times, there are many other way to handle situations about keeping in touch. Smart phone are horrible influences on young children because they have no way of preventing them for seeing everything the Internet has to offer. For example, the voice-activated helper, Siri, is helpful on the go when people have a question. But when children try to talk and play with the feature, it can have many psychological effects on the way they perceive reality. Author Judith Shulevitz makes a great point about technological interaction by describing how “Children today will be the first to grow up in constant interaction with these artificially more or less intelligent entities” (paragraph 7). This new generation is experiencing a completely different society with good benefits as long as they are controlled by the right standards. There will be no sense of individuality especially since phones do most of the thinking for people.   With the media easily able to promote smart phone products all around the country, all it takes is one peer to provoke everyone else to want the latest eye candy in his or her pockets. In the article “The Touch-Screen Generation”, author Hanna Rosin states how throughout “2006, 90 percent of parents said that their children younger than 2 consumed some form of electronic media”(58). Whether it’s for ten minutes or three hours, if the frequent uses of smart phones become a habit, then the issue will remain to become worse.