Children’s Advocates Decry Marketing Mobile Phones To Kids

“A group of consumer and children’s advocates sent letters to key members of Congress Tuesday, urging the legislators to look into the marketing of wireless phones to children…”The targeting of young children as the next growth market for the telecom industry is one of the worst ideas to appear in the American economy in a long time,” the group claims in the letter. “Does anyone really believe that kids today lack sufficient distractions from their school work, that there are insufficient disruptions in the home, and that child predators and advertisers lack sufficient means of access to kids?”
While the wording is a little alarmist, it would be a good idea for the government (or at the very least, the industry) to impose some guidelines on what content should be offered to young children and how it should be marketed. The concerns are not just about ‘predators’, although a recent experience in Australia has shown that kids can be remarkably adept at getting around restrictions designed to protect them…some issues need to be addressed, such as putting restrictions on how much a child can spend. Making sure the content access is also an issue, although as with TV and the internet concerned parents can ensure their children only see appropriate content — and if the parents are unconcerned it doesn’t make any difference what the providers do anyway.
I’m also concerned about marketing, I’d prefer to go with a subscription service for my kids rather than an advertising-based model, and I’d want them to access something with educational content appropriate to their age, for example Sesame Street.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with children learning how to use the technology of their times from an early age (their parents learned how to use books and pens, right?), but children are in a formative stage so care must be taken that they form well.
Related stories:
Mobile Video: Not Just For Grown-Ups
The Next Frontier: Telephones for Toddlers
Mobile Dodges A Bullet

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