Children get first phone at 7, says survey

Kids today typically get their first phone at the age of 7, according to new figures.

Mobile Phone Checker's survey asked around 1,000 parents about the mobile habits of their children, discovering that most parents issue mobile phones to their offspring for safety reasons.

Telecoms watchdog Ofcom recently found in a wider survey that anklebiters tend to get their first phone at around 10 years of age. Upon starting secondary school, they're likely to switch to a smart phone, possibly because of social pressure from classmates.

According to this latest survey, a decade ago younglings were likely to have got a phone at the age of 13 -- but in 2003 that would have been an old-school brick of a mobile "for emergencies", long before phones became more about apps, games, surfing and sending pictures of your unmentionables to random strangers.

It's that access to the Web that can cause concern, as sprogs can wander the wider Web unsupervised -- and are open to a wide range of communication that can bring harassment and bullying.

Measures such as filters on Internet content can be put in place by your network, or you can sign up to a service aimed specifically at little'uns like Bemilo, which lets you access your child's messages, block numbers and set limits on online time.

The new survey also records that more than half those responding paid for monthly contracts rather than pay as you go.

How old do you think children should be before they get their first phone? How do you set rules and keep your nippers safe? Tell me your thoughts in the comments or on our Facebook page.