Chidren should not be given phones before the age of 14

You mentioned several studies in your argument, not one of which have you bothered to cite. Since I would rather not take them 'as-is' I will ignore them in my rebuttal, if you would like to re-iterate them in the next round, please ensure you link me to the studies done on the subjects. The supposed fact that phone companies specifically target bears no connection to your argument. We are not talking about a 'what came first' situation here since it's quite clear what happened here. Advertisers work in conjunction with marketers and analysts to determine who uses their assigned product the most. If such research yields that children under the age of 14 like cellphones with cartoons on them, then the phone company will instruct the advertisers to come up with a plan to capitalize on that specific market while making the necessary product. It is a simple mechanism that takes existing trends and amplifies them, rather than create them as implied by your argument. 1. You claim cellphones are responsible for disobedient children in class, while it is inherently apparent that even before the age of cellphones such problems existed in more analogue forms. The fact of the matter is, while it may be that in this day and age cellphones are what's keeping children inattentive during class, may well have been replaced by notes, drugs and discreet chatter before such time. A cellphone in this case is not the cause of the problem, but simply a tool to sustain it. Cellphones are in no part responsible for the emergence of this trend, which, as discussed, greatly predated them and as such, taking away cellphones(as many schools have already done) will not solve this problem. 2. While I refuse to acknowledge many of the uncased claims you made in this portion, some are quite obvious and once again, are not inherently the fault of cellphones, but of general human behavior. Take the status symbol for example, taking one away will solve nothing. Not when you consider that clothes, cars, shoes, jewellery, tattoos, piercings and so on are also status symbols. If your point is that a cellphone is a vice, then you are correct. However, taking away a vital means of communication from someone just because you deem him or her to be too young to handle it is absurd considering the points you've raised are all apparent with cellphone users of all ages. When you say that children do not do 'important' things you're inserting your own subjective meaning of the word into the mix. To me, 'important activities' do not include physical activities for example. And I'd further like to argue that a cellphone(Particularly smartphones) open many doors to a variety of creative activities. Once again however, we are dealing with subjective terms here, and neither you nor I can declare what is 'important' for a child to do and what is not. 3. This portion is filled with claims which you had not cited, despite my initial disclaimer I thought I should put another one here to make it clear as to what I was talking about. 4. Once again, this type of behavior is not exclusive to children under the age of 14 and is found in all age groups. Furthermore, in this technological age taking away a certain tool from someone will only cause him or her to replace it with another. You simply can not stop someone, whether a child or a fully grown adult from accessing this type of information regardless of how you feel about it. Children can also have access to adult websites without cellphones, and as such taking them away will again not solve anything as cellphones are not the cause. 5. The solution here is not to take the phones away, but to educate its users both young and old on the dangers of using it and of course how to avoid them. While I do not agree with keeping an eye on the phone bill as it has the potential of creating misunderstandings and other awkward situations which could arise should the child discover what you're doing, not to mention it's extremely easy to circumvent if they really want to get on your nerves. I'd like to finish this off by emphasizing the importance of having a means to communicate wherever you go. Regardless of a cellphone's potential to entertain and keep in touch with friends, it is also a tool to ensure one's safety. As you mentioned in your argument, there are many crimes nowadays committed against children. When you take a child's phone away, you remove his or her ability to call for help should something occur, thus possibly endangering their lives simply because you chose to strip them of this tool because you deemed it 'too distracting' . Furthermore, none of the points you raised are exclusive to children under the age of 14, and can be found in any age group.