Should Children Have Mobile Phones?

 

Written by Jenny Catton

 

A recent survey suggests that 9 out of 10 children in the UK own a mobile phone. But many parents are concerned about the physical, emotional and psychological risks of regularly using mobile phones at a young age. So, should children be allowed to have their own mobile phones?

 

Yes – Fiona

My daughter is 13 and has had her own phone since she was 11. As a parent, it’s really reassuring to know that she is able to get hold of me anytime. It makes me feel confident that she’s safe when I can’t be with her such as when she’s walking to and from school or out playing with her friends. And if I’m running late to pick her up, I can let her know rather than leave her wondering where I am.

My son is 16 and likes to stay out late with his mates on an evening. Being able to send him a text to check he’s okay is great. It means I don’t have to embarrass him by phoning his friends’ mothers to track him down or drive round looking for him.

It can be annoying when the kids are attached to their phones all the time but to be honest, most adults are just as bad. Mobile phones aren’t going to go away – they are part of modern life now and so I think it’s good for children to learn how to use them from a young age. They also help my kids to have a good social life – they are never bored because they can always find a friend to talk to or meet up with using their phone.

 

 

No – Vikram

I think it’s really sad to see children as young as eight or nine using mobile phones. It’s just another way in which they are being forced to grow up too quickly. School-age children simply don’t need phones – their parents should know where they are without having to rely on a phone to track them down.

Of course, mobile phones do so much more than simply make phone calls these days which makes the problems worse. I’ve seen young children use their phone pretty much every waking hour – whether they are texting, playing games or checking social network websites for messages. This means that they are not engaging in other healthier past times such as playing outdoors or trying new hobbies.

Children have become obsessed with mobile phones and it makes it difficult to have conversations with them as they can’t focus for more than a few minutes withoutlooking at their phone. I’ve heard reports from parents who say that their children are constantly checking their phone at the dinner table or even using it to message their friends in the early hours of the morning.

There is of course also the worry of potential radiation caused by using mobile phones. Children’s and teenager’s bodies are still developing and it’s unclear what affect using mobile phones has on young bodies.

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Categories: Children, mobile, mobile phones, nbsp, phone, Phones, phones nbsp, young age

Should Children Have Mobile Phones?

 

Written by Jenny Catton

 

A recent survey suggests that 9 out of 10 children in the UK own a mobile phone. But many parents are concerned about the physical, emotional and psychological risks of regularly using mobile phones at a young age. So, should children be allowed to have their own mobile phones?

 

Yes – Fiona

My daughter is 13 and has had her own phone since she was 11. As a parent, it’s really reassuring to know that she is able to get hold of me anytime. It makes me feel confident that she’s safe when I can’t be with her such as when she’s walking to and from school or out playing with her friends. And if I’m running late to pick her up, I can let her know rather than leave her wondering where I am.

My son is 16 and likes to stay out late with his mates on an evening. Being able to send him a text to check he’s okay is great. It means I don’t have to embarrass him by phoning his friends’ mothers to track him down or drive round looking for him.

It can be annoying when the kids are attached to their phones all the time but to be honest, most adults are just as bad. Mobile phones aren’t going to go away – they are part of modern life now and so I think it’s good for children to learn how to use them from a young age. They also help my kids to have a good social life – they are never bored because they can always find a friend to talk to or meet up with using their phone.

 

 

No – Vikram

I think it’s really sad to see children as young as eight or nine using mobile phones. It’s just another way in which they are being forced to grow up too quickly. School-age children simply don’t need phones – their parents should know where they are without having to rely on a phone to track them down.

Of course, mobile phones do so much more than simply make phone calls these days which makes the problems worse. I’ve seen young children use their phone pretty much every waking hour – whether they are texting, playing games or checking social network websites for messages. This means that they are not engaging in other healthier past times such as playing outdoors or trying new hobbies.

Children have become obsessed with mobile phones and it makes it difficult to have conversations with them as they can’t focus for more than a few minutes withoutlooking at their phone. I’ve heard reports from parents who say that their children are constantly checking their phone at the dinner table or even using it to message their friends in the early hours of the morning.

There is of course also the worry of potential radiation caused by using mobile phones. Children’s and teenager’s bodies are still developing and it’s unclear what affect using mobile phones has on young bodies.

Categories: Children, mobile, mobile phones, phone, Phones, phones nbsp, young, young age

What Method is Helping HIV Patients Quit Smoking?

Those who are living with the serious sexual health problem, HIV, are likely to want to safeguard their wellness as much as possible, and one of the ways they can achieve that is to give up smoking. A new study, published in a journal called Clinical Infectious Diseases, shows that when smoking cessation support is delivered by mobile phone, the chances of it being successful are greatly increased. People are more likely to be able to quit smoking, thus improving their wellbeing, when they receive this kind of phone-based support, than people who use traditional methods to help them stop smoking.

 

The cell phone-based method combines motivational intervention, supportive counselling and materials specifically targeted at those who are living with AIDS. Physician-based advice, on the other hand, generally consists of advice and very generic tip sheets. It is important to note, however, that whilst the phone-based approach had very good success rates in the short term, in the long term, complete quit rates were actually quite low, as the impact of the phone-based approach seemed to diminish over time.

 

A team of investigators from Texas were concerned about the high rates of smoking amongst those who are living with HIV, particularly because the disease already leaves sufferers vulnerable to other diseases and serious illnesses. For this reason, the study was designed to investigate how effective a mobile-based smoking cessation service would be.

 

Research was carried out between 2007 and the end of 2009, and it involved 474 smokers who were also HIV positive, and receiving healthcare treatment from the same hospital. All of these smokers consumed five or more cigarettes every day, and their expired carbon monoxide levels were 7ppm or more.

 

The group was split in half, with half receiving traditional smoking-cessation care and the other half receiving the mobile phone-based service, and the results from the two groups were then compared.

Categories: cessation, mobile, Smoking

Did the Google Mobile Sex Advice Service Boost Infidelity?

An initiative has been set up between the Grameen Foundation and Google Inc, to help raise awareness of sexually transmitted diseases in Uganda. This has been done in the hope of improving sexual health and wellbeing by reducing risky sexual behaviour amongst men and women. The programme was conducted through text messaging, but, unfortunately, far from boosting wellness, it has served only to increase infidelity.

 

Those who were participating in the project were able to text questions on any kind of sexual health problem to an automated service. The service, set up by Google, Grameen and a local mobile phone provider, then used specialist search technology to identify specific key words in the texts and then send automated responses with template answers in them.

 

Further research showed that, during the course of the study, rates of infidelity amongst participants jumped dramatically from 12 percent to 27 percent. These results are both shocking and unexpected, and expose a fundamental flaw in the project, which was only ever designed to help rather than to cause further problems. The field of mobile health is a new one, which brings technology together with other organisations to help improve the health of people through their mobile phones.

 

The reason for the rise in infidelity may be down to the education of women in Uganda, who, when they became more aware of the risks posed by unprotected sex, insisted on going to be checked out, and asked their husbands to come along. Some Ugandan men were very resistant to this idea, which led to their wives withholding sex until they would agree to be tested. The men then ‘solved’ this problem by having sex with a woman other than their wife, leading to a rise in infidelity. One of the problems with this particular project was that the women were more committed to the idea of safe sex than the men.

Categories: infidelity, mobile, Uganda