No internet, no idea how the things would go in the future, but a lot of dreams. Mobile phones were just one of these dreams and then, when they became reality, they were brick size and you could smash a wall with each of them. Now we have phones we can get into our pockets and gadgets we can connect the internet through, to see movies and play games on, and the rules are a lot different from we were children.
The rumors about the nocivity of the mobile phones are not new, they have existed for years. Even there is not enough data to be sure, some people proved that the long exposure to the electromagnetic fields is not good. That should be enough to get strict rules about the implementing an age limit and time exposure when using smartphones and other gadges... for everyone's health, not only for kids.
I've heard a lot and for a long time about parental control for computers, I even helped some friends and clients to implement such control. The parental control exists also for smartphones and gadgets, some of them where implemented hardware by the producer, some of them were software dedicated, but the best thing to do is both.
Some says that no child should have or use a smartphone and/or a tablet, until he/she is a teenager. Even so, he or she should use the gagdet carefully, only for short periods of time. Beyond the safety cautions, the intense use of electronic gadges and/or computer can bring somebody to addiction and disturb his/her development as a person. Adults have some ways to deal with such problems, some ways to protect themselves - and, more, that's not a bulletproof protection, but kids don't know such things. They takes about everything for granted and their recovery is a lot harder... but that's another story. I've written some about the subject when dealing with the dangers of online gaming.
When thinking what parental control you should implement for your smartphones, computers and other gadgets at home, remember one important things about kids: tech-savvy children can always find a way to bypass parental controls. I've heard a story once about a small child (he was about 3 or 4 years old at that time) that was accessing his father computer even it was locked with user and password. Everybody was wondering how he could do that, and the answer was simpler than anyone could think: the child saw his parent typing the user and the password the remebered it. He had no idea about how computers work, he knew nothing about users, password and the protection... he just saw something, learned and did it.
Returning to the main subject of this story, why it is important to set an age limit on smartphone use... the answe is this: to keep the children safe and healty, to
