Are your teenagers obsessed with their Mobile Phone?

My sons had never had the chance to experience mobile phones when they were kids not until now when they are earning their own money. The story doesn't ends there when mobile phones are given to teenagers, it incurs extra bills every now and then for the reload bills. So it is better for children not to experience luxury as what we had undergone before. No mobile means no headache.

Yea! I think teenagers nowadays are obsessed with their mobile phones, not to mention them internet messaging too. After all, it is little different from how "adults" are obsessed with their blackberries. In my opinion, it all boils down to connectivity. People nowadays seem to be increasingly insecure. They need to be reassured that they are alive, and that they are not alone in this big world. So hence, the seemingly obsessive compulsion to have their phones with them always.

Here's something funny thing,which i saved in my wordpad,(perhaps this you might find it in an older discussion)I reproduce it here, as you can see from the points 3,5,6,8,11 are related to this topic, and from it you can see how the teenagers are obsessed with their Mobile. I can relate to numbers 2, 4, 6, 7, 10, 12, and 13. You Know You're Living in 2007 When... 1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave. 2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years. 3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3. 4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you. 5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses. 6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries. 7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen. 8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it. 10. You get up in the morning and go online before getting your coffee. 11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile.: ) 12. You're reading this and nodding and laughing. 13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message. 14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list. 15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list.

My boys use their phones ALL the time. My problem was with the cost of text messaging. I got unbelievable bills.. I shut it off - then I signed up for a plan with unlimited text messaging for 30.00/month. That helped.

My brother got his daughter a cell phone and she ran the bill up sky high but he wouldn't say anything to her because he's not a confrontational person. He's so into pleasing his little girl that he won't tell her no on anything which is wrong because she doesn't learn things that way but we can't tell him that for he won't listen to anybody. She's living with her aunt and uncle and was made to get a job so maybe now she'll see how hard it is to make that buck that she'll slow down a bit on the phone bill but we'll have to wait and see.

My question is, is it even necessary for a 12 year old kid or even 14 to have a cell phone? A cell phone is only good to provide a 24/7, portable line of contact with a person. But for a 12 year old kid, where could the kid be going out to and for what amount of time that does not have a phone nearby. Furthermore, if the kid is using the cellphone to talk with friends, how often is the kid separated from their friend to actually need to talk over a cell phone. To expand on that, how often are they separated and in a location without a phone line or how often were they inconvenienced to not be able to walk around when talking on the phone. If a kid were at home, they could easily use a land line and even then it'd be cheaper to get a second land line than a cell phone. My parents bought me my first cell phone when I was about 13 years old and I must say, that was such a waste of money. It was a very nice phone but I never really needed to use it. Over the years I've owned about 2 other cell phones and in the end, one was lost, one's broken and I've returned to using the very same phone I first got. My opinion, when a kid first enters high school around the age of 14 is probably the earliest they should receive a cell phone. Any sooner then that and it's a ridiculous waste of money.

We won't be allowing our boys to have a mobile phone until they at least 15 years old. But the catch is they have to have a job also, or no mobile phone till they do get a job. We will pay for the phone, they can pay their own bills!

My daughter is obsessed with her cell as well. Our kids all have prepaid cell phones same mine and my husbands. We just couldnt afford the bills that would be racked up otherwise. Maybe after we get everyojne grown we will change to the other service, but for now this is the way we have to go. Since my daughter has to pay for her own time on her phone she has learned how to manage it better .

OMG, are you kidding?? We are going through this so much right now in our house. Our girls are 7 and 8 years old, yes and they have a cell phone, mostly to be able to call their mother or sisters when they are away from the home visiting with their father or other relatives. These girls are OBSESSED with their cell phone, they are always on it, even in the middle of the night, it gets CRAZY I don't say much, but if it was my kids I would put them away and not let them use them as much as their mother does. It is crazy, I am just glad we don't pay their cell phone bill.

In California, many teenagers have a mobile phone and a large number of them are using them to much now. One of my friends told me last week that her daughters phone bill was higher than their electric and gas bill combined. I think having a phone is good for calling a parent when your going to be late from school, work or a date, but its important to not cause the bill to be so high your bill is higher than the other bills that aren't luxuries to many people.

I'm no longer a teenager and I don't have any kids of my own, but I see obsessed college students and cell phones all the time. I can be heading to class, and over half the kids that I pass have their heads attached to a cell phone. At my old school, we lived down the hall from a girl that just never got off of her phone. She took it into the shower with her and talked and took it into the bathroom with her too. It was a huge annoyance especially at 3AM or whatever when she was walking up and down the hallway. I definitely would hate to see that bill.

They're very evil toys. xD I make 6 sec phone calls to my mom asking her to pick me up and that's about it xD My mom, my grandma, and I share the same minutes and we always have plenty left over lol I think my highest bill was around 20-35 bucks and my dad complained. I ordered 2 songs, they were like 2 dollars each. and did text messaging and a lot of calling. but i don't call alot. usually my phone is out of batteries or close to it whenever i biring it with me, so i ahve no choice but to use it like once or twice and the battery drains so fast. if i open my screen, it goes from 4 bars to 2 bars LOL. (sometimes) and especially when i'm using camera....so i'm pretty good compared to the spoiled who use up hundreds or maybe thousands on their phone bill

I also got my first mobile phone at 12 years old, because one of my older sister's friends was getting a new one and offered it to me. My mum just got me a pre-paid deal, and would not buy me any more than $30 a month. I've never much enjoyed talking on the phone, so I never got into the phonecalls side of things, my phone has basically always been just to keep in touch with people through sms, and often my $30 would last me up to 3 months, unless I went away, or my friends were going through a crisis or something =P Also, on our service provider, we get free calls to other pre-paid numbers, so my entire family were on the same provider and we would call each other for free. (You get 100 'free minutes' for every $10 credit you purchase) I think a lot of parents forget that they actually are in control of things such as this in their children's lives. If I had been working for my money then, my mum would have expected me to buy my own credit and maintain my phone as I wanted it, and I wouldn't have had a problem with that - if I had no cash and was going away without credit, she'd always get me some so I could call her. I still just have a plain phone just for sms and phonecalls. No camera, no radio, I have those at home, why would I want to carry it around on telephone =P Pre-paid is the way to go for kids, I think. They can only use as much as they have - there is no such thing as a bill. You spend $50, and that is how much credit you get - ah the simplicity =D Have a great day Jenny Mal.

I am a teenager and I am not obsessed with my cell phone, i dont see how all you do is just talk to your friends or just text im not crazy over it i dont see how people are.

I think almost everyone these days is obsessed with their mobile phones, I was driving through the city centre of Melbourne a couple of weeks ago I had to laugh when you see all the office workers and people standing at the lights, walking down the street oddly enough nearly all wearing the traditional office black and nearly all with one arm up with their mobile phone to their ears, it almost looked like it was the new fad way of walking, it really looked quite funny...

As a teenager, I was also obsessed with mobile phones.. Although I didn't get the latest of the gadgets when I was in my teens, but still I was very content that I had a cellphone.. But now, it has become an absolute necessity for me.. For me, life without a cellphone is almost impossible.. It helps me a lot in day to day work.. I can listen to music on it, store lots of movies, important data can also be stored in it.. There are a whole lotta uses of a cellphones these days, and its not just making and recieving calls nemore...

till now i dont have any kids, so havent experienced it all, but i have heard the stories to teenagers talking a lot on mobile phones or through landlines.

We gave our daughter her cell phone for Christmas when she was in the 8th grade. She was 14. This was last year. By this Christmas she will have had her phone for a year. When she first got the phone she used it a fair amount but didn't to too nuts with it. She did break it within two months. I couldn't afford to replace it right away and even if I could have, I would have made her wait awhile, to teacher her some responsibility. I think I made her wait about 2 months til I replaced it. She has a plan with unlimited minutes and unlimited texting. I don't want her to have a camera phone because I heard some stories about girls sendingi n appropriate pictures. I didn't want that to even be a possiblity. Plus, I was after the cheapest phone I could find. Now she talks on the phone quite a bit, but she used the text message feature even more. Somtimes she uses it too much, but when it gets to that point I just make her cut back. I think texting and cell phones is just a sign of the times. It's what people do these days. But, with children and teens, parent's do have to be careful and make sure their children don't go overboard and we need to make sure we know who they are talking too.