Comments on: Your kid’s cellphone: a youth sports parent’s best friend http://trueslant.com/bobcook/2010/03/09/your-kids-cellphone-a-youth-sports-parents-best-friend/ The joy, the pain, the psychos of youth sports Sun, 12 Feb 2012 22:48:14 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: kurtfawnigat http://trueslant.com/bobcook/2010/03/09/your-kids-cellphone-a-youth-sports-parents-best-friend/comment-page-1/#comment-841 kurtfawnigat Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:14:31 +0000 http://trueslant.com/bobcook/?p=1738#comment-841 "Or maybe you think merely that a post-toddler or preteen is too young to have a phone."? Don't be silly. Of course a four-year-old should have a cell. But I think we're just scratching the surface here. The potential for kiddie-apps, vertical integration and toddler specific social media is limitless. I'm picturing a four-year-old resizing a racy Jpeg to be uploaded as his or her avatar on Smallspace.com. But I do feel terrible about the millions of kids that were raped and murdered by strangers every year before the telecoms figured out how to monetize our fear and sense of self-importance. Now that's really a dream come true. “Or maybe you think merely that a post-toddler or preteen is too young to have a phone.”?

Don’t be silly. Of course a four-year-old should have a cell. But I think we’re just scratching the surface here. The potential for kiddie-apps, vertical integration and toddler specific social media is limitless.
I’m picturing a four-year-old resizing a racy Jpeg to be uploaded as his or her avatar on Smallspace.com.
But I do feel terrible about the millions of kids that were raped and murdered by strangers every year before the telecoms figured out how to monetize our fear and sense of self-importance. Now that’s really a dream come true.

]]> By: jeff http://trueslant.com/bobcook/2010/03/09/your-kids-cellphone-a-youth-sports-parents-best-friend/comment-page-1/#comment-838 jeff Wed, 10 Mar 2010 06:12:22 +0000 http://trueslant.com/bobcook/?p=1738#comment-838 Here is one data point that says that cell phones have not been good for at least one sports playing kid. One of the reasons that my then 12 year old son got kicked off of his school football team was that he spent so much time on his cell phone texting to girls that his homework grade declined and thus got kicked off for grade problems. His school's online grade tracking system didn't break out homework as a separate grade, so things looked good to me (and I was checking too) until he got on academic probation. This was good incentive to get his grades back up so he could play on the basketball team. He had texted so much that his phone broke. I "procrastinated" for months getting his phone fixed, so that helped with the grades also. When I did get the phone fixed, I put limitations on the time it could be used, although my and my wife's personal number and our home phone could be used at any time. So far so good. In any case, I can't really say that cell phones have been so great for my kid. Here is one data point that says that cell phones have not been good for at least one sports playing kid. One of the reasons that my then 12 year old son got kicked off of his school football team was that he spent so much time on his cell phone texting to girls that his homework grade declined and thus got kicked off for grade problems. His school’s online grade tracking system didn’t break out homework as a separate grade, so things looked good to me (and I was checking too) until he got on academic probation. This was good incentive to get his grades back up so he could play on the basketball team.

He had texted so much that his phone broke. I “procrastinated” for months getting his phone fixed, so that helped with the grades also. When I did get the phone fixed, I put limitations on the time it could be used, although my and my wife’s personal number and our home phone could be used at any time. So far so good. In any case, I can’t really say that cell phones have been so great for my kid.

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