E-safety group warns of dangers of mobile phones
Friday 12th November 2010, 2:29PM GMT.
E-safety group chairwoman Tracey Moore has expressed concerns that children as young as five can access inappropriate material on the internet through a mobile phone. (Picture by Steve Sarre, 1051487)
CHILDREN as young as five are at risk of exposure to indecent images on mobile phones, according to Tracey Moore, chairwoman of the island’s e-safety committee.
She said mobiles gave children easy access to the internet, and it was not easy to filter information.
‘Children are able to access inappropriate material and their parents aren’t there,’ she said.
‘This problem is nationwide, and also affects Guernsey.’
She said a big concern was the age at which children were being given their own mobile phone.
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Just like to know what a 5 year old is doing with a mobile phone especially one that can access the internet.
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Why are parents allowing children mobile phones at five? if they really are, why are they allowing them to look at naughty things?!?!
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John
Playing football with it?
I get your point though.
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Has Ms Moore just discovered that the Internet contains porn and that mobile phones can access the Internet and drawn immediate and unresearched conclusions? I would like to see the evidence for such a claim.
Presumably, when parents are absent enough from their offspring’s life that the need for a mobile phone arises, the infants are able to access an Internet-enabled computer fairly regularly.
Also, my ‘spider senses’ temple that the sex drive of a 5 year old isn’t that high, let alone their interest in the opposite sex.
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Whats a mobile phone? (buttons too small for me to use)
So how do your children have access at the young and tender age of 5 with all on go?
Parents!
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Bart – I think that’s the point Tracey Moore is making. Having given a young child a mobile phone that they can carry around with them (the majority of which can now access the web) it is difficult to prevent them accessing the Internet.
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If a parent must give a 5 year old a mobile phone (why only knows) it can just be a bsaic one like the one I use. No internet probs then.
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Mobile phones at 5 years old?
Who on earth are they calling?
Sounds like more stupid parents buying things their children don’t need to make up for not spending any time with them.
There is a reason the mobile phone companies are not permitted to advertise mobile phones to under 14′s – the young brain is more at risk of permanent damage from the signals sent out from the phone, the brain has stopped growing by the age of 14, so off they go.
Parents who give mobile phones to their children too soon risk this damage.
Well done parents, keep up the good work, your offspring will grow up just as intelligent as you.
Queue a load of dimwit parents bleating about safety trying to justify it – blah, blah.
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I agree with many sentiments above. I simply cannot see a reasonable justification for a pre-pubescent child to own a mobile phone – unless parental paranoia or “but all my friends have one mummy!” counts.
In an effort to be objective though I’d be interested to see some figures of how many crimes or catastrophes were averted as a direct result of a 5 year old carrying a mobile phone.
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The health issue through exposure to radiation is more of an issue than access to pictures. There is no justification for children owning or playing with their parents mobile phone. Children are exponentially more sensitive to the effects of radiation than adults, this is not taking into account that their underdeveloped skulls are much more easily penetrated. Studies have already shown a direct effect to the speech development of babies/children whose parents use mobiles around them (high usage being defined as more than 30mins each day) compared to normal landlines. Giving mobile phones directly to children is just plain irresponsible and at best ignorant. It could be compared to giving a child a packet of cigarettes.
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I’m having a hard time thinking that even the most irresponsible of parents actually give their 5 year olds their own mobile phone. Age to one side it just doesn’t make sense, it would be broken in approximately 3.5 minutes.
Ok so even if you do give your youngster your phone to play one of the games during a particularily stressful temper tantrum at a doctor’s surgery the likelihood that they will then be able to come out of the game, go to the net app, load up a search engine, find and load up inappropriate images is slim at best. And if it did happen I really wouldn’t be worried I would be bouncing off the ceiling telling all and sundry how my little darling will be the next Bill Gates!
I think the emphasis to this story has to lie with children who are more likely to have mobile phones, say 11 upwards (however 11 in my opinion is still way to young it’s a sad fact that it does happen), which is a much higher risk. Phone companies/application designers should (relatively simply) be able to put a parental lock function on, much the same as you would have at home.
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My children are in their mid 30s, and I still haven’t bought them a mobile telephone, the internet’s a scary place, and shouldn’t be accessible to youngsters.
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Mr G
I don’t want to point out the obvious but can they not purchase their own? You seem to have a very “tight reign” on your children but you have made my day by saying that people in their mid 30′s are still youngsters
.
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Donk , meet sarcasm
Sarcasm, this is Donk
I do hope you can get along ….
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I feel that i am an expert in Sarcasm but i totally missed that. Better start practising again….
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I am past retirement age, and have never seen indecent images on my phone, i fail to see the problem.
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Roy Gueno
You should have gone to Specsavers
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