A study by the government’s communications regulator in the UK has found that a quarter of children aged just 3-4 years old own smart phones.
Yes, you read that correctly, 25% of children barely older than toddler age have an i-Phone or similar device.
In fact, the study by Ofcom found that a quarter of all children under the age of 7 have a smart device, an increase of around 5 percent in one year.
The data for children younger than 7 was provided by their parents, so the real number could be much higher if some parents chose to be liberal with the truth.
The study found that close to 60 percent of 8-11 year olds own a phone, and when you get to the ages 12–17, essentially all children own smart phones.
Ofcom noted that “infant school children are increasingly online and given more digital independence by parents”.
That’s one way of putting it.
The study also discovered that children are bypassing age checks to access social media apps, by simply making up their date of birth.
More than half (51%) under the age of 13 use a social media app of some sort on their phones, despite the fact that most social media apps require users to be over 13-years-old.
A total of 40 percent of children aged 8-17 told Ofcom that they have lied about their age to access an app.
In the 5-7 age group, a third of parents said that their children use the apps completely unsupervised and a third said they allow their kids to use apps before they reach the minimum recommended age.
The government’s Children’s Commissioner Rachel de Souza commented “Underage use of social media and messaging platforms is widespread. Protections in the Online Safety Act must be implemented swiftly and robustly, with effective age assurances.”
The findings come as the government is considering implementing a complete ban on under-16s buying smartphones.
However, such a law would not prevent parents buying the devices and giving them to children, which is the case in the vast majority of homes.
The government is also considering a law that would require parental approval when children under the age of 16 sign up for social media accounts.
Richard Collard of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children urged that “The number of very young children using social media points to a systemic failure by tech companies to enforce the age limits which they set.”
Studies have shown that there is ample evidence that use of social media is linked to an increase in anxiety, depression and a decline in mental well-being among young people.
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I understand the risks involved, but I’m not going to lie, if I was a kid growing up in the 90’s, I would of killed to get my hands on a smart phone.
I mean you have the WORLD at your fingertips at a moments notice.
The entire internet right in the palm of your hands. Every question in the world answered within a second via google.
Entertainment, world news, the media…
Even back in the 2000’s I was saying you could learn more about the world through a single day online than you ever could in 10 whole years of mandatory public education.
What could any single government trained teacher ever teach you that you couldn’t find out for yourself through a simple google search?
How many of you who are fully grown adults wish you had a smart phone growing up? or a smart watch? 24 hour access to the internet? Even a laptop?
I didn’t have access to any of those things until I was an adult, but I guarantee I would of been running circles around my teachers/parents if I did.
Yeah, there’s always the paranoia of kids being ‘glued to their screens’ and not getting fresh air, but I bet my life savings with the right parental guidance, good friends, good social life, those kids will be running circles around all of us.