It is the modern parental dilemma: at what age should you let your child have his or her first mobile phone? The answer could soon be in single figures with the introduction of a device aimed at “pre-teens”.

Samsung’s Tobi phone, released yesterday at a cost of between £70 and £80, is supposed to ease the minds of concerned parents with several safety features that will make it easier to call parents in an emergency and stop children receiving bullying text messages.

But it is also designed to appeal to primary school pupils, coming in “sweet pink” or “loyal blue” colours with a choice of on-screen themes based on animated characters and the ability to customise the back of the phone with a range of colourful designs. Samsung said that it would be marketing the device at parents but family groups doubt this.

“I’ve always thought that there is a potential market for phones with reduced functionality that can block images and phone numbers,” said John Carr, secretary of the Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety. “What is not a good idea is increasing the pressure on parents through marketing to buy more branded goods. In essence, it will be the kids who pick up on it.”

Sue Palmer, author of Detoxing Childhood, which gives advice to parents on how to steer children through the problems of growing up, said: “We have a huge amount of child protection legislation which is protecting their bodies, but nobody is thinking about their minds.

“They’re being brainwashed and leeched on to think that the most important thing in the world is consumption, and their parents are now being brought into the act.”

Samsung defended the phone, saying that the advertising was “aimed squarely at parents” and that it had gained the support of some parents’ groups, such as the Children’s Safety Education Foundation. “A least it gives the parent a chance to sit down and think about the safety issue,” it said.

The Tobi, unlike most phones, can block senders of text messages, so a child can choose to stop receiving messages from a given phone number. Experts pointed out, however, that the phone also has Bluetooth technology, which gives an alternative way for someone to send malicious and offensive messages that cannot be blocked.

Mr Carr said: “Some horrible pictures, sometimes pornographic ones, of kids on the toilet or in the changing rooms, are swapped through Bluetooth.”

Mobile phone makers are finding it increasingly difficult to sell their products because consumer demand is slowing and because the vast majority of people already own a phone. Many pre-teen children are among the last who do not. Research by the regulator Ofcom last year suggested that 65 per cent of girls and 61 per cent of boys between the ages of 8 and 11 owned or had access to a mobile phone. But in the same age range, only 22 per cent of boys and 40 per cent of girls used a mobile phone every day.

Others pointed to health concerns. In 2005 Sir William Stewart, then chairman of the Health Protection Agency and the National Radiological Protection Board, recommended that 9 to 14-year-olds should make only short calls and that younger children should never use mobile phones.

Small talk

The Mickey Mouse phone
A planned Disney service aimed at 8 to 14-year-olds was scrapped because of an “adverse retail environment”

Teddyphone
“Child-safety” phone for four-year-olds programmed to call only four numbers

Hello Kitty phone
Launched last summer in pink. Sanrio insisted that it was aimed at older women

Source: Times archives

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