Kids and Cell Phones: A Necessary Item?

03.14.2010

I hate cell phones. I’ve always hated cell phones and it wasn’t until I went to graduate school that my then boyfriend, now husband, bought a phone for me because I was traveling so far that he wanted me to have one in case of an emergency. If it weren’t for that, I’d probably still not have a phone.

What I don’t understand is why parents give their children cell phones. The most common excuse is, “So I can get a hold of him/her whenever.” This is funny to me because when I was a kid, my mom always knew where I was. And where I was, was either school (can’t talk on the phone there), out with my friends (don’t need a phone there cause I’m actually with my friends), volleyball practice (can’t pass the ball and be on the phone at the same time), or playing the piano (and like volleyball, can’t play the keys and be on the phone). So let’s review, cause I’m a tad bit confused, exactly when would I have needed a phone?

OK, so my mom didn’t know where I was every minute of every day. But does a cell phone necessarily give you that opportunity? I mean, can’t a kid choose not to answer his/her phone and then lie about why he/she didn’t pick up? I think this notion of giving your kid a cell phone so you can track him/her gives the parent a false sense of security. If you truly knew where your kid was all the time, you wouldn’t need to use the phone as a means of contacting him/her. If your kid’s over at a friend’s house, you call the house or the parent in the house to get in touch with your kid. If you directly call your kid, how do you even know if he/she and his/her friends are being supervised? Cause again, just because your kid says the parent is there, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.

As a former teacher, I hate cell phones even more. Students text each other during class providing one more challenge to the teacher. Teachers continuously struggle to keep their students’ attention and now we’ve added one more poison to the mix. And parents have contributed to this. By law, a teacher can’t take away the phone(s) because it’s considered personal property. But just because you’re telling the student to put the phone away, it does not guarantee that the student will or has put it away. Or they might put it away momentarily and then, when the teacher’s not looking, discreetly pull out the phone and resume his/her conversation.

I was recently substituting at Lithuanian school for one of the older classes and I was appalled at the behavior of some of my former students. Today’s thirteen-year old is no different from when I was thirteen. Lord knows I knew it all back then and I was smarter than any “stupid adult” in the room, but in this particular situation, I was disgusted by the amount of disrespect going on with these damn phones. And it was by both the boys and the girls. I completely disregarded the law and immediately started taking away these phones because I honestly didn’t care if they found the sound of my voice boring or their assignment boring; I wasn’t going to allow for such behavior to go on on my watch. They had assignments they needed to do and they didn’t involve texting!

These stupid phones are actually stealing students’ education. The school day should be about school and I wish there were some way to regulate their use. Many schools have policies where the phones should be neatly tucked away in lockers or backpacks, but, yeah, really, people, let’s see the light. That ain’t happening. And parents need to be with it more and help schools enforce these rules.

I can’t imagine what kind of technology will be out there by the time our kids are in high school and it scares me because I’m going to be a very strict and mean parent. Just like I was never of the opinion that a 16-year old should get a brand new luxury car, I don’t think kids should have cell phones. Let me amend that. Perhaps a 16-year old is at an age where a cell phone might be a privilege, but certainly a 10-year old shouldn’t have one. I equate it with what I often saw when I lived in Europe. I would see young kids, as young as 10, smoking. They did it cause it was a cool thing to do and it made them look a certain way but was that really the best decision for them? They needed adults to guide them and teach them and then later, with a solid knowledge about the dangers of smoking, they can make their own decision. Having a cell phone might not fry your lungs, but adults have difficulty in behaving appropriately with them, how can we expect a child to know certain social protocols when no one’s teaching them what they are?