You know how it is now days. Soon as kids turn 11 they just NEED a cell phone. Mom and Dad have to fork out 50 bucks a month now so the kid can be happy.

Other kids turn 13 and need one.

Or you start driving and the world will just stop if you dont have a CELL PHONE. You cant even drive without one.

I am 17 and have never owned a cell phone.

A girl I know who is 13 ran her cell phone bill up to 800 bucks this past month. Lets just say she dont have one any more. Her parents did not have a text plan and she just texted all during classes and such and talked and talked until she ran all the minutes out and kept on going. She is working all summer to pay the bill too.

I saw it on tv but never knew it would happen like that. It was funny.

My grandparents didnt have one when they were young and didnt neither did my parents.

If there car broke down guess what they did?

They walked somewhere to find a phone. As if there car ever broke down that often. When it did a phone(even then with fewer stores) wasnt far off.

If you get a phone because your worried about what you would do if your car broke down your wasting your money. Think of what you could do with 50 or more bucks a month extra? Take a family of 4 to the movies 2 times is one thing.

My uncle had a family share plan. He let us on it with the one extra line he had as long as my dad paid for it. We use it for biz reasons.

We used to have a cell phone in case of break downs on the road but we never used it and the bills kept coming.

My mom got a pay as you go for those cases(she is diabetic and needs a phone more than most in case of trouble) and she doesnt have to pay nothing per month. Minutes are cheap enough and last forever as long as she used 1 or 2 min a month the account stays open.

Back on topic

Do you think teens need a cell phone? What do your teens have? I think if cell phones were cheaper lots more people would have one.

For instance verizons min single plan is 39.99 plus tax and a 25? buck activation fee plus a phone(free cheapy one) or pay extra for a good phone.

Well thats like 40 something a month. And you only get 450 mins. Thats just 7.5 hours of talk time for a whole MONTH. If you used it more than for just those hi's and bye's type calls you would run those mins out quite quickly.

Now for 20 bucks more a month you can DOUBLE your mins. 15 hours on the phone is a lot but some do it.

The average teen can sure burn those 15 hours up in a month.

Do you think anyone needs a cell phone?

I have made it without one. Even when we go out. If I need to make a call I do it on some of my friends phones.

I think many teens could do the same. But I want my own number! It comes with your own BILL too.

Do your kids have a phone and a VALID need for one? Just wondering and wanting to learn more about how others live there lives with cell phones.

Today its like everybody has one. Phone booths are almost gone but in like big stores.

I think 11 and 13 are way too young to have a cell phone. They aren't mature enough to understand the concept of "phone bill." That said, I think that prepaid plans are the best plans for teenagers 14 and older. Why? Because for most (the ones my family had for many years) cut you off when you run out of money. So, if a teen wanted to keep talking, they would have to shell their own money to get more phone time. True, parents could be weenies and pay for them, but I know some would say "tough toenails, pay for it yourself."

I agree that its very easy to run out of cash and minutes, as well as using features that you don't have a plan for. My mom recently bought Sprint phones, for herself, my brother and I. She also bought the basic family plan, which didn't include text messaging or PCS Vision. I downloaded stuff onto my phone via Vision, but at least I gave her money to use on the next phone bill. My brother uses text messaging a lot...and my mom will most likely make him pay her back. But, both my brother and I have jobs, and money with which to pay her back. Most teens just get an allowance, and its gone before they know it. If they go over their minutes, it is the parents that are stuck with the bill.

My mom got my brother and I phones because we are going away to college, and long distance rates from campus are expensive. And my mom and dad have cell phones for their jobs. But I don't think teens need cell phones unless they are going out, in which case the parents can do what my mom did: she lent us her cellphone, and we returned it when we got home. My brother and I never got our own cell phones untill this year...I never had one in high school, and my bro only got one his senior year because he got a part-time job.

So...my view is: if teens have to have a cell phone, for emergencies and the like, get them a pre-paid plan, and if they want more money on it, make them pay for it; it's called "responsibility." Sometimes they are needed for jobs and other reasons, so I wouldn't say don't get one...but be reasonable. Don't buy an expensive plan with fancy features that you aren't going to use...just get what you need, and if the kids go over, make them pay. And, you can get free cell phones...some companies (like Sprint) will offer you a free phone if you buy a two year plan. I think those are great deals, and they can save money...which can be forwarded toward the monthly bill.

rms4evr

PS...I have a vendetta against camera phones and those "Verizon V-cast" phones...the last time I checked, cell phones were used to call people...NOT to take pictures and watch TV...get your priorities straight, people!!!!

I know I need one, cause my cell phone is the only phone peolpe can contact me on. We don't have a home phone anymore. No one can reach me at all, not my dad, nor my mod unless I have my cell phone.

My mom is on her boyfriend's plan. My brother and I are on my grandma's plan.

My grandma's plan has 600minuts, however she has the "Sprint Fair and Flexible" plan. Which means for every 100minutes she goes over she pays only $5. Which is really cheap compared to paying $.40 for every minute over.

EDIT



Exactly. For the money you are forking over for a camera phone I can buy a better quality digital camera at Best Buy.

Where I live, just about every call is long distance.
We figured out the cost per month for the calls (land-line), and internet connection (dial-up).
It was cheaper for us to drop the land-line, and go with 2 cells (one for the wife, and one for me) and satellite internet.
It runs about $30 a month cheaper.
Cell plan is free long distance, free roaming, and free calls to phones using the same provider (which is what most of our calls are to).
We went with one of the cheaper plans, with the free phones, as all we use a phone for is to make calls.
If I want to text someone, I'll send them an E-mail.
If I want to take a picture, I'll use a camera.
We also have roll-over on the left over minutes.
As of the last bill, we have over 8000 roll-over minutes available, so we just pay the basic bill every month.

I'm not going to say i NEED a cell phone, but i'm definately glad i have it. My mom gave me one the day i turned 16. I think they're really important when you start driving. What if there were to be an accident? What happens if you break down in a place that doesn't have a phone for miles?


Did they have airbags? Anti-lock breaks? A LOT of things have changed since that time. Just because past generations have been able to "deal" without technology doesn't mean the world would be better today without it....

It's especially useful at college. A lot of my friends call me after class, or when i need rides and stuff. I don't use the dorm phone (WAY too many telemarketers, surprisingly...).

As for my cell-phone plan, i share it with my mom. Neither of us really TALK on the phone, we mainly just use it to keep in contact with each other, let people know where we are/when we're going to get there, and stuff like that. For actual conversations, i stick to Gaim and the ever-popular "face to face" method

To summarize, i think phones are IMPORTANT to have, but i completely agree that millions abuse them. I would LOVE a bill passed nation-wide that made talking on the phone while driving illegal. I've been cut off too many times by idiots having a conversation on their phone about who-knows-what. It would DEFINATELY be safer on the road if cell phones were taken out of the picture.

My sister started her girls out with pre-paid minute cards and made them pay for it themselves.
It didn't take long for them to figure out cost vs. air time.
Lesson learned.
If a kid runs up an $800.00 cell phone bill because they're to young to be using it, it's the parents fault and they're the ones that need to wake up and educate them as far as usage.

Once I took my grandma's plan, 200 minutes over however, since we have the Fair and Flexible plan I only had to give my grandma the $10 for 200 minutes.



Wouldn't it be more like: It would DEFINATELY be safer on the road if cell phones were taken off the line.

Camera phones are junk...at least the camera part.
Poor quality pics and weak flash if they have one. Expensive downloads off the providers site are also rip off's. I have never tried a mp3 player cell but I have my own mp3 player.

I also have my own camera which is very expensive and very good at taking pics. No cell phone will replace it in storage or features let alone pic quality.

I think paying out the ears(old saying lol) to watch stupid tv on your cell phone is stupid too. I cant believe anyone would do it. As gas prices keep going up wasted money will be put in the tank and taken away from tv phones lol.

Yeah when we need a cell we use our moms pay per min phone. Just call if we need a ride or whatever and get off.

I think phones are more of a expensive fashion statement for most teens.
Sure they are handy at times. But not always needed or even worth it.
Like when we go on vacation. I have these two way radios. They have a 12 mile range on them(were the best on the market until the 14 mile ranges came out) and we use them around theme parks and such. Its free and we can talk anywhere in the parks it even goes through the buildings!

I just dont personally have the need for one.I mean I could USE one every now and then. But a few phone calls a month sure isnt worth all the money. I see how the others here need one. We dont even have cable/sat/direct tv and never have.

Sure there are good shows on tv but 40 bucks a month for tv is too much.
If I had the option around here...id get fast internet over cable tv.

Kids are manipulative... They NEED cell phones to be happy because they know twisting your arm in that way will get you to buy them one. But make no mistake... That whole line is only meant to enable them to impose thier will over you.

I didn't have a cell phone until I was in my 20's... And I turned out just fine. I had lots of friends and I was quite happy without it.

Parents: Don't allow yourselves to be manipulated so easily. (easier said than done I know... I have 3 myself)

.....do you people have a conspiracy against teenagers or something?


Just because YOU don't have a need for one doesn't mean there aren't a lot of teens that need them. What about teenagers that have active social lives, traveling around a lot, going places, on vacation, etc. Times have changed. I know i wouldn't want my kid (when i have one) running around town or outside the county without a way to get in contact w/ me if something happens. Simply saying "they can walk to a phone" is a really poor argument for opponents of teen-cells. Cell phones allow you to avoid having to possibly walk long distances or deal w/ strangers to try and use a phone. Technology, for the most part, makes our lives better, and cell phones are included in that group.


I think you're making WAY to big of a deal out of teens asking for them. You seem to be making it out that unless every teen has a cell phone, they're all unhappy and whiney. I know a lot of my friends don't have cell phones, and have absolutely no problem with it. Not everyone NEEDS one, but everyone that has one didn't get it from being a "manipulative" evil kid.

Sure, a hell of a lot of people i know abuse them (and i agree that the tv on your phone thing is pretty stupid), but don't think that every teen w/ a cell phone abuses it or got it by being a brat. PLEASE stop being stereotypical....

Well I wasnt saying it was a bad thing that we have cell phones. Times may have changed but what I was getting at is the kids who think they cant live without one. The girl who ran her parents bill up was told she was only getting a min phone and that she was going to pay for the mins and she was not happy about that.

I think cell phones are great. If I need one I will get one. I dont think I would really need one its more of a want issue. I heard on tv how much people talk on cell phones a year in the USA and how little is being said.

Like most just talk for no reason. Not even really to keep in touch but to just talk. I thought wow people pay all that money to just talk. Amazing.

Oh, it seemed as though you were criticizing people that had them since they weren't technically needed.

Well, i agree with everything you said in your most recent post, sorry for misunderstanding.

I used 267 hours on my old phone in the course of 2 years. How is that talking too much?




I just got a new phone and I've had it since mid-May and I've used 1477 minutes (24 hours and 37 minutes).

Wow thats a lot...
at 12 cents a min(some cell plans are about this much a min.) you had to pay
$1922.40 to talk for two years...

I paid $0... lol

Wow I think if my friends want to talk to me its either on the internet,regular phone(unlimited!!) or we can all get cb's for our cars...

I'm not much of a phone person. I dont like to talk on the phone much. How can you do it?

Actually my grandma paid $2,040 for 2 years for 2 phones for the first year and 3 phones for the last year. So actually it is cheaper to be on a plan, cause our plan would only cost $75 a month for only one phone (with the nights starting at 7). Which would be $1,800 in 2 years.

I need a cell phone. I was about to get ready for a soccer game and my dad went to go get a better parking space. (there's 30 fields) My game got delayed so i was standing there for 15 mins looking for my dad!!! After 15 mins he finally came and I asked him where he was he was in the car waiting for the game to start because it was like 95 degrees. Then we had to tell my mom that we wouldn't be home til 7:00 PM. My dad went to a payphone. IT ate his money!!
WE all need cell phones. Now my bro is going to drive. And we have a 1990 Toyota car that's almost about to break. He has to use that since my dad uses the better car to go to work. My dad can't find the car he was looking for and hes still looking.

i think some of you are being pretty harsh on us teens. i got my cellphone when i was thirteen, because i was starting high school, and my high school was a twenty+ minute drive away from my house and each of my parent's work places. i can't drive, and the bus doesn't come to my town, so if i didn't have a ride or money for the payphone, i was pretty screwed. if school let out early and my parents didn't know, i needed the cellphone to call them and get a ride arranged. its saved my butt multiple times. (and you could be thinking, why not get a ride from your friends? most of my friends live 30+ minutes away from my house, and not many of them would want to go that far out of their way )
my mom wasn't really happy with me being that far away from my home, without a bus ride, without being able to drive myself, and being completely dependant on them for rides, without having any means of being able to contact them immediately if something happened. sometimes they're running a half hour late, and they call me to tell me instead of just letting me sit there for a while not knowing if they've forgotten or gotten their wires crossed or if i need to call them or what. its not as if teens just use cell-phones to talk about cute boys and bubble gum all day

with that said, i don't think my cell phone bill usually goes over twenty-five dollars. my family's whole bill usually comes out two about 145 dollars, i think. (there's four of us, and i think my phone was the cheapest to get since we were all buying from the same company with the same plan.)

some teens do go over their limit, way over, and some just stay right where they're supposed to be. i don't think its fair to act like we all talk on our cell phones 24/7 (not saying that anyone was implying that.)

I'll agree with Ambellina. My daughter is five, and I'm ready to get her a cell phone for when she starts first grade. They now make phones with two programmable buttons--a mom button and a dad button. She'd be fine without a phone, but I've got the means, so why not. My daughter is very responsible, and would adhere to any parameters we set with having the phone. (If she didn't, she'd lose it.)

LOL....5 year old with a cell phone(no offense never heard of such)
When I was in first grade we had gameboy's...
Borrowing a cell from a friend or using the school phone wasnt a option ambelina? My school would do stuff to sometimes and the phone was always in the office. Not a need but a want.

I remember when all the other kids got gameboy colors. I went out and found a gameboy (1989 model not the thin pocket one and not color) for 10 bucks with 1 game. I later had to have a gameboy color.

Did I need one? No not really. Mine played all the games but the ones for the gameboy color and not many of my friends even had those games anyways. We all used the old style they were now just in color. Infact I may have had the first gamebody color game out of my class next to one other girl who was kinda rich I think.

I saw those phones for kids. You can program up to 10 numbers and 4 are on speed dial. Some look like butterflies. I say if you want to spend the money go for it.



Nope wasnt me...lol Nah really I know teens dont. Just 23.99 hours a day...lol

I've never had a cell phone, and I really don't see the point in one

They come with a Bill each month in YOUR NAME so it makes you feel special to pay it lol!

Here is a pic of the kids phone.

I personally donot think that children including me (age: 15) need a cell phone to talk to people if we need to call tht bad call frum home.

-Steve

I think if you have the money to just blow why not give it to the kids overseas or to a charity for cancer or such. It would be much better used.

I agree!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Steve

I feel that I don't need a cellphone. Well, just for fun anyway. If there was an emergency, then yeah, I would love to have a cellphone. Imagine this scenario... car flipped over and you can't get out. What would you do if you didn't have a cell phone? Exactly...

I would say make your teen pay for his own cell phone, thats what I had to do. I got a phone with unlimited minutes, unlimited long distance, for like 40 dollars a month. but my phone would not work outside city area. If not that pre-paid phone service would be the best way to go, i could not image paying 800 dollars for a cell phone bill.

I am 16 and got a cell phone not long ago. I am on a prepaid service I can buy a 20 or 30 dollar card. I get unlimited text messaging, call display and a bunch of other features and Solo Mobile has this system called 10-4 so I can use my phone as a walkie talkie. I pay 1$ and I can use the walkie-talkie all day (and it isn't blocked by trees and stuff... I can pay a 1$ and talk to my friend in British-Columbia when I am in newfoundland... I pay 40 cents a minute weekdays and 5 cents a minute nights(starts at 8pm) and weekends... I don't use my phone much in the week anyways because I am in school.

I need a phone since I work as a Stage/Lighting/Sound technician in a few theatres so I get phone calls often... and I am not at home and taking a message at 4 pm when he needed my at the other place a 2pm... well it's kind of difficult. Also the other technician I work with alot got the same phone/plan as me so we use the 10-4 system to talk to each other when we are working. Example I can move lights in the ceiling and I can tell him to turn on one to check it and then he can turn it off... and I could go out to a store or something where a normal walkie talkie wouldn't get reception I do...

Not all teenagers and even regular people need them... but some do...

BTW My mom bought the phone for my birthday and I pay for the cards... The phone was 130$ plus a 40$ pouch and headset... and now I pay for a 20$ card every 45 days... or sooner if I lose minutes and I try to use the text messaging as much as possible. I also get msn messenger on my phone. The reason I get a card every 45 days is because after 45 days the minutes expire but if I but a new card on my balance rolls-over so when I get to the summer and need more minutes (cause I have to pay 40cents a minute weekdays and I work more the week...) I have the extra cash

I am kind of sad because nobody said anything about my post... I like when people argue

Had the new phone since end of May; so far used: 2888 minutes (48hours).


Klinkaroo I don't have a problem with your post.

I need a phone, and I got one!

I am 14.

Parents got me one last month as a graduation gift.

It did not cost much more to add 1 more phone to our plan, before just my parents had one.

We all three share the minutes, and my phone has 250 txts a month (only 5 bucks) which I have to pay for. This isn't too hard, but not too easy considering I dont get allowance (still do chores dailey though, like dishes, trash, lawn, etc.).

The only reason they got me a phone is because I am not going to a public high school. My high school is 45 mins away, in teh city of Seattle.

If I'm going that far and back daily, I need a phone.

PLUS I get to talk free to Verizon! A lot of my firends have Verizon so I hardly use any minutes. The ones that don't have Verizon has Cingular I think.

But anyways, that is why I NEED a cell phone.

What I think is also important is that parents shop around and with there kids too. If there kid is saying I want that one because all my friends have it well talk them out of it... and look at the different carriers to see what there plans are and maybe ask their friends what carrier they have because if they are all on the same one often you can get like free calling between the same carrier or unlimited text messaging between carrier ect...

Some parents just don't educate themselves and go by what their 13 year old tells them and then get screwed in the end...

Cell phones are neat but why pay a montly fee for something that is just neat. I mean a bunch of teens could easily live without one they prob dont use it enough to justify 40 bucks a month but they get one for convenience or just to say they have one. Which is nothing wrong with that if you have the money. They are neat and can come in handy. If you use it rarely pay phones are great. I might get one of those one day.

Somtimes 'teens' can only be contacted via cell phones.