“Make kid-specific phones”

Mobile manufacturers have been urged to make more appropriate handsets for children in a bid to increase their safety when using content and services such as the mobile internet.

As part of the presentation of The Carphone Warehouse’s Mobile Life report, which tracks the technology, mobile and internet behaviour of 6,000 US and UK youth and adults, guest speaker Dr Tanya Byron said: “Children are getting mobile phones younger and younger, so now, a phone for an eight year old should be different from that for a 12-year-old, and that should be different again for a 15-year-old.”

Byron spoke following discussions on the report’s findings, such as a third of children have met strangers while they have been online, 40 per cent of parents use security software for their children’s web activity and that 50 per cent of children in the UK lie to their parents about their online activities.

The findings were discussed parallel to Carphone Warehouse UK chief executive Andrew Harrison’s comments that compared broadband internet, both fixed and mobile, with creating a technological revolution similar to that when electricity was first discovered.

He added Carphone retail outlets were now set up to push laptop saturation in the UK.
In response to Byron’s statement, Harrison said: “For so long there has been a pressure on the industry not to promote mobile phones to under 16s because of potential health risks, although research has been inconclusive.

“But usage in this age group has gone through the roof. We can’t force ourselves against the tide, and have no one taking a responsible attitude towards it.

“It is a segment that is massively missed by manufacturers and retailers.”

He added the mobile industry needed to provide greater security measures if it wanted to encourage users to consume more mobile content.