While 5 may still, in the eyes of many, be a bit young for a cellphone, the debate is one that all parents have nowadays: What is the appropriate age for a child to have a phone, especially one that can be used for video messaging and unfettered access to the Internet and social media?
The average age at which kids get their first phones has declined steadily during the past decade, according to a 2010 study by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and ongoing research by one of the study’s authors.
According to Pew, the typical American gets a first cellphone at about 12 or 13 — that’s down from 16 in 2004.
In 2004, 45 percent of people between ages 12 and 17 had cellphones. By 2010, it was 75 percent.
“On the surface, these numbers are self-explanatory,” says Scott Campbell, a University of Michigan communications professor and coauthor of Pew’s youth phone usage study. “More children are getting cellphones, and they’re getting them younger. But what we should consider when looking at this increase in phone ownership and usage among children is that it parallels cellphones being able to do more, being useful for more than just phone calls.”
Campbell’s study found that while cellphone owners in general still use the devices for talking more than anything else, among 12-to-17-year-old kids texting is the primary use.
A more recent study by Nielsen says that cellphone data use — including texting, e-mailing, Web surfing, and social media — tripled from 2010 to 2011, while minutes spent talking on phones fell in this age group from an average of 685 per month to 582.
The Nielsen study, which examined 65,000 teenagers’ cellphone bills, found that girls send nearly 4,000 text messages per month and teen boys more than 2,800.
