World-News

I feel very uncomfortable about how cosy Spiked and mmO2 are. Whilst it is interesting that corporates are increasingly obliged to be seen to attend to corporate social responsibility, the Monbiot story about how a whole media organisation was set up by the tobacco industry and ran undetected for years producing "science" makes one very wary.

http://www.spiked-online.com/sections/technology/debates/mobilesocietyprotection/default.htm

Responses at:
http://www.spiked-online.com/sections/technology/debates/mobilesocietyprotection/responses.htm

Peter Erskine can't afford debates like this to run disconnected from their corporate message, especially with kids accessing what they like from the Internet from mmO2 phones with iMode.

But there are serious issues here, and commentators in this Spiked debate are presenting cogent warnings about kids and phones as much as cow-towing to the "fear and safety" scam.

I suggest we all try and chip in on this one with sensible, and if possible parental, sentiments on where we think it's all going.

Lots of very serious questions to ask:

False fear generated to create a market on "safety"?

Spying and surveillance?

Inappropriate content?
Separation of the young peer groups from the parental world and awareness?

False sense of safety because having a phone leads kids to unsafe places where they feel they have a lifeline?

Levels of bullying, levels of street crime, the extremes of rape and killing videoed by phone: is this avoidable given the culture phones have created?

Parents paying huge annual bills without really knowing what it's producing?

What is a phone for a child for? Designer / gadget / marketing contrary to ecological principles re phone turnover and contaminating waste? And what will the "mobile communicator" have become for our kids when they are adult?

Happy debating; don't let this industry think it's just a sales opportunity.

Andy

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Mobile phone use and exposures in children
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1004419/

Children and Mobile Phones… Is There a Health Risk?
http://www.acnem.org/journal/22-2_august_2003/children_and_mobile_phones.htm

Children & Mobile Phone Use: Is there a risk?
http://www.acnem.org/articles/children_mobile_phone_use-maisch.htm
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1337433/

Teddy bear mobile ‘puts 4-year-olds at risk from radiation’
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1204405/

Child warning over mobile phones
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4163003.stm

Get off that mobile, expert tells children
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1431415,00.html

Children's use of Mobile Phones needed urgent Attention
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/349736/

The cellular telephone and children
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1178705/

Hide Cellular Phones From Children
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1178177/