Do young people, spend too much time texting? Are they ruining their English, and risking potential future health problems like RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury), by over-using their mobiles as the British Society of Chiropractors warned recently?
| If you have a brick phone you shouldn’t bring it out. When it rings, act like it’s not yours! |
Or do adults, the ones who buy us the phones in the first place (this year sales are expected to reach 20 million) worry too much?
Self-confessed phone addict, Keisha Fredericks, 13, admits to having once survived a day without her phone but describes the experience as 'sad'. "I didn't know what was happening", she says.
Like many of her peers Keisha finds it hard to resist the lure of texting in the classroom and sends them when her teachers aren't paying attention.
She admits it does distract her learning to some extend. "But it's fun", she says. "I text people in my own class, but only if their phone is a vibrating one."
Popular
Autumn McTear, 17, agrees that phones can be distracting to children. "They want to play snakes all the time", she says of the popular game that is an alternative to texting and talking. "But when I'm not having a decent conversation I pick up my phone and play games. I don't own a phone, I borrow phones from him", she says pointing to her boyfriend, Dwaine Thomas, 21, who has four phones.
Asked why he has so many phones, Dwaine's answer is mysterious. "It's called business", he says.
Along with fears about the risk mobiles may pose to young people's health some educational experts have also claimed that text messaging is ruining young people's spelling and grammar.
But Edward Gyima, 12 doesn't agree: "I don't think so," he says. "Because with texting you have a limited amount of words, that's why people break down the words, so they can finish what they are saying quickly without using all those letters. I suppose if you're already good at English, it won't affect you."
Another big issue surrounding mobiles is the demand to constantly keep up with fashion and have the latest model, but not everyone feels the pressure.
"It doesn't really matter about the style", says Edward: "As long as you can call people and text them, that's the main thing. The other accessories are up to you and how you want to treat your phone."
Keisha agrees that having the latest model isn't that important, "as long as it's not a brick" which she defines as "a big fat phone, like a Motorola, or a big fat Siemens."
Keisha explains the shame of owning a brick phone: "If you have a brick phone you shouldn't bring it out", she advises. "When it rings you act like it's not yours and you run away. I don't think there's much pressure to have the latest phone, as long as it's not a brick."
"I had a phone, but not anymore," explains Alex Morrison, 10, who confesses to once taking his phone to church, (a vibrating model of course). Explaining how it came to be lost he says: "No, it didn't get jacked actually, I was chasing this girl during Sunday school and it must have dropped out of my pocket and the face got mashed up. "
Alex's reference to phones getting jacked (stolen) highlights a problem that faces many children on a daily basis. 15,000 phones are stolen every month in the UK. When the London police carried out research they found an increase in robberies between 3.45pm and 5.15pm as pupils left school.
Keisha explains how a friend of hers was robbed of her phone near Kilburn Park station, north-west London.
"My friend was walking home from school one day and she was trying to flex her phone and some girl went behind her, she was holding a knife and she grabbed her phone off her."
With more young people becoming the victims of mobile phone theft, Richard Owusu, 12, explains the other benefits of having a hands-free set: "When you're walking on the street, people won't know you have a phone. They might think you're talking to yourself or that you've got headphones on. You can go, 'blah, blah, blah' and they will think, 'he's crazy so I won't jack him."
Bills
As for the problem of young people running up massive bills for their parents to foot Niya Alfred, 14, says this isn't a problem.
"People don't buy bill phones anymore", he explains. "It's easier with a pay as you go. With bill phones you have to pay line rental, and this that and the other."
Neither do these young people think children might be tempted to steal in order to buy top-up cards. "It depends how desperate they are for a phone", Edward believes: "I wouldn't steal. I'd just bug my mum. But I don't have a phone because my mum won't buy me one."
While not all parents are keen for their children to own a phone, Keisha nonetheless thinks 11 is a good age to be allowed one: "Because then you start going out and you meet more people and hang around your area", she says.
"If you don't have a phone and everyone is kotching outside their block playing Snake, texting, and swapping ring tones, then you're left out. If everyone's using free texting and you haven't got a phone, you feel jealous."
However Edward reckons phones are popular among young people because of their practicality: "Maybe the reason why children have mobiles is that they go out a lot and their mum's are all worried. So you might need one so you can call your mum and say, 'I'm coming home at this time.'"
Of course in the days of old, children who needed to phone home used an antiquated contraption - a public phone box. But for these young people, using something so old-fashioned is fast becoming as outdated as using a courier pigeon to communicate.
Richard dismisses the very thought. "That's a long t'ing bwoy", he says "What's the point of having 20p to phone your mum when you might need to talk to her for a long time."
While high streets across the nation are now sporting new model phone boxes with texting and e-mail facilities, they don't impress these young consumers. Would they even use them? "Nah", continues Richard, "because having a mobile is like having a phone box in your pocket. That's the whole point of it. Anyway, not all the phone boxes have that."
For these young people the future for mobile technology holds no end of possibilities. Says Richard: "I would love to see TV or something where you could make your own music, like decks."
Edward would like to see voice activators included on mobiles. "I reckon all phones should have that," he says. "Instead of having to look up numbers in your phone book you could just talk to your phone and say the person's name and voila, it just comes up."
About the team
This article was produced by Loui Ebanks, 12, Della Hicks-Wilson, 15, and Jonathan Ijoyah, 10. The young people who participated in this article are members of the South Kilburn Regeneration Project's Youth Club and Children's Express. The article was published as part of Teen Talk, the Children's Express page in New Nation.
