‘Limit kids’ use of mobile phones’
p2pnet news | Mobiles:- Parents and schools should help limit childrens’ use of mobile phones to prevent them from accessing “harmful” information on websites.
That’s the view of a Japanese advisory council on education which, says Agence France-Presse, made the proposal to prime minister Yasuo Fukuda, “as children become more prone to crimes involving dating websites and bullying on Internet school bulletin boards”.
Calling for a limit on mobile phone use to calls only, “It is true that the use of mobile phones causes various problems,” said Fukuda, going on:
“I wonder if there is any need for children to possess mobile phones.”
The panel also recommended English be made compulsory for children in their third year at elementary school, instead of the current first year at junior high school, says AFP, adding:
“There are fears for students’ safety as only about one percent of them have blocks on potentially harmful material, meaning they could reveal personal information, making them prey for fraudsters and paedophiles.
“But even on protected sites such as school bulletin boards, bullies are able to anonymously post comments without teacher oversight or intervention.”
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.Stumble It!
Agence France-Presse – Japan panel urges limit on mobile phone use by children, May 27, 2008
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May 28th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Kids do, in fact, eventually grow up…
May 28th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
The interesting this about this advisory, is the fact that the people on this “advisory council on education” are missing a major point on this entire argument. But first, let me put this whole story into perspective.
In the past 20 or so years, Japan has gone through a technological evolution, much like that in across the world. It first started out with the popularization of pagers in the early ‘90, and then onto the popularization of “simple” mobile phones in the mid-to late ’90s.
As the technology increased, so did the popularity of mobiles phones, with the ability to text message and send email to others evolving into the ability to play games, use full email and special mobile only information services (i-mode, yahoo mobile, etc…), and since the early ’00s, the ability to access material on normal web sites.
This has lead to the ability of people to access information off the web, as well as use email services, without even having a PC (which has lead many annalists to determine mobile phones as the cause of the decline of PC sales).
Coupled with the ability to keep track of children, using embedded GPS receivers, many parents have purchased mobile phone for their children, for the children’s safety.
A note here… in Japan, a large percentage of the children use trains and public transportation to and from schools, as well as to and from Jyuku (otherwise known as cram schools), thus making it more imperative that they have the ability to contact their parents, if something goes wrong. Until the early ’90s, most of the children used public pay phones to do this.
As mobile phone technology advanced, so did the children’s knowledge of it’s use. Children started to use email and text messaging to ask friends about homework. Many children also learned how to set up blogs and bulletin boards, and site like Mixi (similar to MySpace and Facebook) and make new friends.
This is where problems began to appear. As the method of information gathering became easer and wider spread, several children fell to online predators, who would threaten them with physical violence and or spreading rumors that could ruin them in school.
Recently, there has been a growing rash of “underground School BBS”s, where anonymous death threats and posts like “Don’t you just hate so-in-so? I wish they would just go and kill themselves” which have led to several cases of pre-teen and teen suicide.
This, along with the problem that, contrary to computers, it can be very difficult to follow the activity of a child’s internet viewing habbits.
The advisory council on education is using these facts, to conclude that all children under the age of high school should not be allowed to have mobile phones. This, of course is after a ruling by the government to require all new mobile phone sales to minors to have content filtering capability be default (this can be opted out only by a parent or guardian).
“So kids under 16 can’t carry a mobile phone, what’s the problem?”
The problem is from the fact that due to the rise of people using mobile phones in Japan, it is now very hard to find a public phone, much less one that will take coins (due to the popularity of pre-paid phone cards in the ’90s). Now, it can be very hard to find a public phone.
Why is it that so many people look for an easy way out to solve problems, instead of actually analyzing the situation, and really thinking out what the consequences of their “advisory”, might have in the present day.
Just my two cents
May 28th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Limits on use of information is failure and completely against the idea of education…
If a person is going to kill themselves because somebody online asked them too, they deserved their own death for being to weak to combat it..
May 29th, 2008 at 1:06 am
I’d say IGNORANCE is the enemy they should be fighting. If someone written on the wall “Jack Whathisname must go and die” – should we ban freaking WALLS?!
May 8th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
I think cellphones should be allowed with limits (not during class). But what about such kids who use cell phones intensive during class (ex. like my son)? My son is a little addicted to the Internet and I use Internet filtering software called Ez Internet Timer in order to prevent him from spending all the time on the Internet at home. It really works with him. But at school he don’t listen to the teachers and surf on the Internet. I do know that school is designed to allow and encourage students to learn first of all! Not to surf on the Internet during lessons. And now I’m really thinking to forbid the use of cell phone.