JEDDAH, 30 September 2006 — How young is too young to carry around a mobile phone?
Six-year-old Hamza Yaser probably thinks he’s old enough.
“When Hamza’s father brought a new phone he gave Hamza his old phone with a new SIM,” said Yaser’s cousin in a recent report in Al-Madinah Arabic daily. “Since then his friends started calling him constantly. And his father has now decided to take the phone back because he felt the child was abusing the privilege.”
OK, so six years old may be too young — albeit persons of any age have been known to abuse their mobile technology, particularly when speeding down Jeddah’s Madinah Road having attention-robbing phone conversations, or worse: texting while driving.
How about seven or eight years old?
“Bandar is a seven-year-old child with divorced parents,” said Bandar Abdul Raheem. “He lives with his mother and he rarely visits his father. His father pampers him, and tends to give him everything he asks for. Because of this it was very easy for Bandar to get a mobile phone.”
Wisam Abdul Aziz, who is eight years old, told the daily that he wasn’t happy with his Nokia 6600, a gadget that retails for around SR700 (about $190). “Now I have a modern one, and soon I will be carrying a more stylish one,” he said, already hoping for his third mobile within a year of getting his first.
Perhaps nine years old is the age at which children should carry mobile phones.
“I insisted on a mobile phone,” said Aseel Mahmoud, 9. “Having a mobile is very important to me.”
Maybe a child should have a cell phone when he or she becomes a teenager, or perhaps parents should use the offer of a mobile phone as an incentive for kids to do better in school.
“I wanted to carry a mobile to feel in with my friends,” said Yasir Hamdan, 13. “I have convinced my mother and she said she will get me one if I get excellent grades. Also, I have the chance to change my mobile for a better one when I do good deeds.”
Fourteen-year-old Nura Hamid said she resorted to good old-fashioned brat behavior. “My father has refused to buy me a mobile phone,” she said. “However my insistence, continuous crying, and refusing to eat worked!”
Sultan Al-Jihani, 15, said he resorted to more creative tactics. “I would go with my friends and stay late to make my parents worried,” he said. “I told them that with a mobile phone they could always call me. When my brother bought a new phone my family gave me the old one.”
Dr. Laila Al-Mazroue, head of Child Psychology at Umm Al-Qura University said that mobile phones at school tend to become an object of prestige that can cause kids without mobiles to feel inferior in the often-cliquish environment of primary school.
“The families that give their kids mobiles at such an early age should think of those children whose families cannot afford the luxury,” she said. “Uniforms at school are there to prevent any sense of inferiority — mobiles in grade school and high school bring that class issue back into the classroom.”
Al-Mazroue said that parents who gratify children’s material impulses are losing opportunities to teach their children important values.
“I am not saying that we should not provide for our children, but we should take a moderate approach to these things,” she said. “Violence is harmful to children, so is pampering.”
Al-Marzoue added that divorced parents are more likely to pamper their children in an attempt to buy their allegiances against the ex-spouse.
