Kids & Cell Phones
by: Robert Lett
Is it safety? Is it security? Or is it just cool?
Have you ever noticed how many kiosks have popped up in you favorite mall? And just about all of them are selling cell phones. Teens can actually design their own graphics and have the graphic airbrushed on the face of the phone itself. They face plates and antennas that light up on each ring. Just drop by a kiosk next time your at the mall, you'll see what I mean.
In a resent Los Angeles Times article, they stated that teens with cell phones were at around 16% on average. I think by 2005, it will more of an average of 50% or even more.
Cell phones seem to be a great security feature for the parents. They can now be 'connected' to their children 24 hours a day, 7 days week, and 365 days a year. And of course, it allows the child to dial 911 if an emergency arises. And now with the GPS Location Sensitivity feature, your child will be located during that emergency with ten feet of the phones location.
Of course, with all this technology and added security, there are a few problems. The school systems are being cluttered with phone calls in the middle of class. And there is always the problem with calls in the hallways and bathrooms going on continuously. Most schools are adopting the "use it during school - you loose it" policy. This has become a real burden on school administrators. Their parents as far as carrying the phones themselves back the children. So this isn't something they can take away and keep until the end of the year. They must give the phones back at the end of the day. This is usually enough of a deterrent to keep them off during school hours.
If children and most adults new to cell phones could just remember to put their phones on silent or vibrate alert, these problems would never occur. These are the same issues with many other public places including movie theaters. Of course, it's easier for some wearing a belt to put their phone on vibrate, then you still know if the phone rings or not, regardless if you answer it or not. But for most women, they usually don't wear belts, this creates a problem. If the phone is in any mode other than "ring", they never know, (without checking from time to time), if they have missed a call or not. So usually, the phones are left in the "ring" mode and probably on load, sitting somewhere in the bottom of a purse. Even with the purses with the little pocket on the outside for the phone, the phones are still left in the "ring" mode.
How do you keep your child from talking you out of house-n-home? If you think about how your child may get on the home phone and talk for hours if you let them. What if they did that on their cell phone? There is one answer. But this might limit your ability to get in contact with them when you want to.
Some ideas:
1. Using a prepaid phone instead of using a shared plan, (it costs anywhere from $0.30 to $1.00 per minute talk time). You give them a certain amount of minutes per month. After that, it's up to them to use their allowance money to up the phone time. These phones are usually cheap and not as fancy as some of the newer models.
Using this technique is also useful on determining how responsible they may be with a checking account in the future. If they are out of the allotted minutes within the first week of the month, this might reflect in bounced checks in the future. And can also help to ingrain the use of saving up for that rainy day: If the child doesn't use all their minutes this month, they will have that many more minutes to use the following month and so on. Just like saving money in the bank. If you spend all your allowance in one week, you won't have anything for the next three, but if you save now, you have twice as much to spend next month. And so on, three times as much as the following month. (Hmmm, so what could you buy if you were holding three months worth of allowance)? Think about it.
Parents can recharge the phone each month as part of their allowance. This gives children a feel for having a checking account! Because, when it's gone, it's gone! This will hopefully build a level of responsibility. Or this could possibly make them want to go out and get a job to buy more minutes. Either way, it has the potential to help them coup with the world ahead of them.
2. Shared plans from your current provider. This is the cheapest way to go. But, if your child is not yet responsible enough not to over use, then your in for an interesting surprise at the end of the billing cycle. With most of these plans, you can get anywhere from $0.07 to $0.12 per minute. And with most carriers, the plans include either 1000 mobile-to-mobile minutes, which means if your child calls someone else on the same cell provider as you, the call comes off the 1000 minutes. Some even have plans that mobile to mobile are unlimited. And many of the plans have free night and weekend plans. Which would mean, you might never get the child off the phone over the weekend! Remember one thing: It's hard to keep up with what minutes where used when and how, so you would have to check with your cell provider from time to time to see where you are on the minutes you have available. Most services have a number you can dial, and a computer voice will read off the time you have used for the current billing cycle. And most of these plans will require a one to two year contract which might cost as much as $100 to $200 to break. So if you decide that the family plan isn't working out like you thought, it might cost you up to $200 to end that contract. Most of these plans will also have an activation fee, they usually charge anywhere from $30 to $50 per phone being activated. And of course, don't forget one really important thing: You have to buy the phone! This always helps to you the service. And this is probably going to be something the child will want to pick out.
One note about cell phone time-sharing. If you have a family of three using a shared plan of 300 minutes per month, and your child decides to use 300 minutes of talk time within the first 3 days, for the rest of that month you will be paying anywhere from $0.35 to $0.60 per minute for every call! This might not even be a responsibility factor: What if your child calls a friend that he thought was on the same cell carrier. Which, if you have the 1000 minute mobile to mobile or unlimited, this call wouldn't count against your plan. But if his friend was wrong about the carrier, you get bill.
(I've actually done this)! And I never checked my time because I use a program that does that for me. I just enter in the numbers I think are unlimited, and the program never counts those numbers. Well, if you get that wrong, it can bite pretty hard at the end of the billing cycle when you see that pretty bill.
A note about roaming fees. If you aren't in your "area" as defined by your cell service provider, you will be charge a roaming fee for incoming and outgoing calls. If your plan doesn't include a national calling plan, you will be charged anywhere from $0.45 to $0.80 per minute for those calls. So be careful.
3. Prepaid phones.
Simple, you buy a phone and then buy minutes as you need them. Most will include roaming and nationwide coverage, ("Roaming" no additional fees for your current location, where ever that might be and "Nationwide Coverage" just means no long distance charges). These phones don't require any contracts, so this means you can cancel at any time without paying any cancellation fees, which can be anywhere from $140 to $190, depending on the contract length you signed up for originally.
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Kids & Cell Phones
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About The Author
Robert Lett has operated his 25 year old company Infinite Data for the past 4 years with nothing more than a handheld Smartphone. As a public records research specialist, I need to have all my important files with me when ever I speak with a client. I now carry all those files with me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, hanging on my belt. I haven't sat at my desk in front of my computer for over 3 years. Be productive 24/7, anywhere - anytime.
palm@robertlett.com
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