<p>More questions</p>
<p>[Mobile</a> phone use ‘raises children’s risk of brain cancer fivefold’ - Science, News - The Independent](<a href=“Mobile phone use 'raises children's risk of brain cancer fivefold' | The Independent | The Independent”>Mobile phone use 'raises children's risk of brain cancer fivefold' | The Independent | The Independent)</p>
<p>Given that my 11-year old likes to cruise fairs and malls by herself, I’ll take the risk in exchange for knowing I can contact her at will. YMMV.</p>
<p>13 yr. old S claims to be one of 4 kids in his class that still doesn’t have a cell phone. It’s his incentive to raise his grades. Kids don’t talk on phones anymore, they only text. I heard a new study released today, indicating text messages now outnumber voice calls on cell phones.</p>
<p>My 16 yo doesn’t text - we don’t pay for it - he disabled it on his phone after getting a rash of junk texts.</p>
<p>Last month, 1350 texts for the older daughter in college and 375 for the 14 year old.</p>
<p>mathmom – D was getting spam texts, but she called our carrier (Sprint) and they put a block or something on her number. She still gets all her zillion-a- day texts from friends, but no more spam.</p>
<p>Both my S’s got cell phones when they reached high sch. S2 who is now college fresh., informed me recently that “texting is the most efficient means of communication”,lol. We have a family plan with the four of us sharing minutes. We have never gone over the minutes but had to get the unlimited text as they kept going over on that. I am amazed at how deftly my large football player S2 can text on that tiny keyboard.</p>
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Wow! She must spend all day texting! </p>
<p>Toledo, kids in my family didn’t get cell phones until they started driving. I survived with occasional calls on other people’s phones when I needed a ride. He will survive too. :)</p>
<p>My oldest didn’t get a cell phone until he was in college, but now everyone has them, except for my 10 year old. And we have a cordless phone too (and the article says the risk is almost as bad for cordless phones). How worried should we be?</p>
<p>The kids don’t seem to talk that much on the phone (thanks to Facebook, I suppose), does that make the risk less?</p>
<p>Corranged and oldfort, oldfort’s D is an amateur. This summer, my D (16) had over 4000 text messages per month. Yes, 4,000 per month. Now that school and her fall sport has started, she’s dropped from 150 texts per day down to about 30. (Remember, only half of those are outgoing, the other half are incoming).</p>
<p>Not worried about brain cancer, though. She talks on the phone less than 2 hours per month. Of course our plan has a zillion unused rollover minutes…</p>
<p>$30/month for unlimited texting for all 3 of us on the family plan was the best money I ever spent.</p>
<p>I’m more worried about the sleep disorders that they are developing by sleeping on the phones and answering every buzz.
My D evedently answers text messages throughout the 24 hour period without a 7 hour break
She can’t be convinced that it causes a problem…</p>
<p>dragonmom - I am paying AT&T $5 month to limit my kids from texting or surfing from 12-7 on weeknights, and 2-8 on weekends. They could receive, but couldn’t send. Now their friends also know the restriction, so a lot less texting and a lot more sleep.</p>
<p>Somehow my kids survived without cell phones till four years ago (one mid-year frosh college, the other a college grad.) I’m sure they’ll be interviewed on some talk show somewhere to see how they survived.</p>
<p>oldfort- thanks for that information. My 14 yr old got a blackberry this summer and her text message usage has gone through the roof. Last month over 3000. I have informed her that must go way down or the phone becomes mine.</p>
<p>S1 had around 300 and S2 had over 1800 texts on our last phone bill.</p>
<p>I don’t see how any child under high school age needs any cell phone. My kids had the pay as you go for emergencies and had to pay for it themselves while in high school.
Last year I broke down and got a plan - with 3 in college now.
We have 4 phones on the plan and unlimted texting for everyone is $15/month.
Two of my kids consistently send over 2000 texts a month. It’s easy - they text instead of talk. whole conversations. I have even learn to text since they generally will respond to a text sooner than an email or phone call.</p>
<p>^ Cell phones for younger kids (younger than high school) are good if they’re athletes with changing schedules, especially for away games. That’s the only time in middle school when I really needed a phone. My parents always set pick-up times for social occasions.</p>
<p>Is the British economy better than ours? 9 out of 10 16yr olds with cell phones and 40 percent of elementary school kids seems awfully high.</p>
<p>I don’t know any elementary kids that have cell phones and many of my Ds friends from high school don’t have cell phones.</p>
<p>( we have phones- but didn’t get them until older D was a junior in college & we have a small shared minute plan- which includes 500 text messages apiece- which we all stay under 
)</p>
<p>When my youngest was in 4th grade, her gymnastics gym moved to a location that was a 45 minute drive away from our house. I didn’t want her to be that far away for that long without a phone. And, of course, I couldn’t get the youngest one a phone without getting phones for the older ones. I love to be able to get in touch with them when they are away from the house. I also approve of them checking their texts at school (from the restroom so they are not seen) because sometimes we need to get info to them and it’s a lot easier than having them called down to the office. Last summer, the youth choir sat in the choir loft one Sunday and Son was dozing. I texted him to wake up. It was funny to watch.</p>
<p>^^^lol Missypie. </p>
<p>I considered paying the fee to limit outgoing texts/calls during overnight hours, but instead I’ve just been checking the cell phone bill. I told D that the phone must be turned OFF when she goes to bed; if I find out she’s texting/talking after bedtime she’ll have to give the phone to ME when she goes to bed. She knows I check so she’s been pretty much abiding by the rule. I should add that despite the phone being turned off, she often sleeps with it in her hand. I think she’s too lazy to delete her text messages and doesn’t want me reading them.</p>