For many young people, the mobile phone is a status symbol and an extension of identity. For aspirational young kids and tweens, this is no different. For them, getting a phone is a rite of passage, and the age at which this happens is getting younger and younger. According to Nielsen Mobile, the average age a kid starts using a borrowed cell phone is 8.6, and they typically get their own at 10.1.
However, most handset manufacturers don't cater this this market -- only recently shifting their adult-centric view. Parents may also be relutant to pass back their new iPhone (though we're seeing this as well). This has opened up a market for special mobile devices just for kids. Here are some of the players:
- Fisher-Price offers the Pixter, a PDA-style portable activity center for kids. It has a color touchscreen and stylus with which children can draw, color and play with, not entirely unlike Adobe Illustrator. Separate software adds more features like math lessons, and an extra snap-on digital camera makes the "phone" just like Mom and Dad’s. While the Pixter is a fun tool, it still seems more like other handheld gaming devices for children than an actual mobile.
- If realism is what you're going for, Bandai has you covered there with the "Mobile Communicator Smart Berry" for kids. This Japanese “toy” lets users actually email, text and play online games with each other as long as they’re within 10 meters of one another. It works on a wireless network and comes with a keyboard and an LCD touchscreen. Following this TotBerry trend, LeapFrog recently introduced the Text & Learn, affectionately known as the ‘baby BlackBerry.’ It even looks like a giant, colorful version of the real thing. Made for kids ages three and up, the Text & Learn features a full QWERY keyboard and pretend browser, and encourages little users to “text” with the virtual guide Scout.
- For slightly older children with a desire for phone-like capabilities, there's Firefly Mobile, "the mobile phone for mobile kids." It has actual voice services and a pay-as-you-go-plan. However, it’s made for smaller hands and instead of a regular dial pad, there are just five keys. Parents use a PIN to program up to 22 outgoing numbers into the phone, putting adults in charge of just who their kids are talking to. The Firefly has struggled to find a market though. Tweens, who now increasingly own real phones, find it too babyish, while younger kids have less of a need since they are almost always with adults. Still, the Firefly can be seen as the training bra of a mobile lifestyle.
- Aware of tweens' fashion sensibility and love of "real" phones, another contender for the tween market, Kajeet, offers LG, Samsung, and Sanyo phones that parents (with their kids) can customize. The Maryland-based company offers shared payment plans (the kids can pay the texts, the parents can pay the calls), limits for call or text usage, blockable contacts, and GPS for the restless children. On the other hand, Kajeet does not offer any kind of data service, a crucial feature for generation Y.
So what does this mobile mania for pre-teens mean? Some are concerned. In France, there are even new laws in the works that crack down on children’s use of mobile phones. Advertising these devices to children under 12 will be prohibited under the legislation and steps will be taken to ban the sale of any phone designed to be used by kids under six years old.
However, if the trend we're seing in youth adoption continues, pacifiers will soon come with keypads. If nothing else, we’re breeding a tech savvy generation who will be the next wave in mobile innovators.
