Kids playing with cellphones called problematic

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

BLOOMFIELD, Mo. (AP) — The 911 Services administrator for Stoddard County in southeast Missouri is calling attention to a growing problem of children playing with discarded cellphones and accidentally calling 911.

The Dexter Daily Statesman (http://bit.ly/M5UDM2 ) reports that Carol Moreland says parents are apparently unaware that dialing random numbers from a cellphone or landline phone will eventually reach the 911 dispatch center, causing a distraction for dispatchers and emergency personnel.

Moreland says that if parents are going to give children discarded phones to play with they need to remove both the subscriber identification module card and the battery.

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Information from: Dexter Daily Statesman, http://www.dailystatesman.com

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Silverado_Phil 10 months ago

Really?!?!? Giving a child a cell phone to play with because the parents can't keep the kids occupied themselves? Need to teach the parents a lesson - charge them a nice tidy fee for their kids calling 911 unnecessarily. Then maybe after a few times the parents "MIGHT" start thinking about the consequences of their actions.

TickledPink 10 months ago

Did you not play with toys when you were a kid? The article is referring to cell phones that are no longer being used, not parents just handing their functioning iPhone to their kid. Even without a plan in place, cell phones are set up to connect to 911 when dialed. Most people don't know this so when they give a child an old cell, to them it's just like giving them a play phone. I had a toy phone when I was a kid and my children all had little toy phones when they were young. Maybe now more people will realize that emergency calls can still be made and remember to take the SIM card out when they discard a phone.

Silverado_Phil 10 months ago

When I was a kid, a toy was a toy, an imitation, not a genuine item that was no longer being used. My toys probably never cost more than $5. Do you give all your unused but still funtional items to your kids to be used as toys? Got guns you don't use? Got power tools you don't use? What about any knives or hand tools that you don't use? Would you give all these items to your kids as toys? Of course you wouldn't. Because they're not toys. Has our society gotten to the point where a piece of electronic equipment that probably cost hundreds of dollars, is now disposable? And people wonder why today's youths don't take care of their possessions. They lose something or break something and expect Mom and Dad to buy them new ones. And the parents do it. Why? Because it's easier to just buy the item and appease the children instead of trying to teach the kids a lesson on taking care of the stuff. So is giving a kid an unused but functional cell phone as a toy a good idea? What doors does this behavior open up?

JMO 10 months ago

I really can't even begin to imagine why anyone would be so outraged by this.

I have at least three old cell phones in my house that no one uses. We usually get the free ones that come with the cellular plan. Change companies or upgrade and bam, unusable phone. So...I should recycle them. Just like I should recycle my old eyeglasses. But I always forget to take them with me. I wouldn't think twice about giving one of the phones to a kid to play with like a real one. Of course, they would have a dead battery. I'm sure the reason for keeping them charged is for downloaded games or music or they'd still have ringtones, etc. Really, I'd have never thought about the fact that they'd still call 911 until I read this. Well, I might have, but it likely would take me a minute.

Phil, I don't know what got your panties in such a wad over this. Your guns and knives and power tools remarks are ridiculous. Cell phones aren't dangerous. But you know, I had my mom's old purses and hats and shoes for dress-up, even some jewelry she didn't like anymore. I had old plates and bowls and silverware in my play house. That's a far more reasonable comparison to an old phone.

TickledPink 10 months ago

JMO, I almost posted exactly what you did (even down to the dress up clothes/jewelry) but you beat me to it. I have an old phone that had a couple buttons stop working on the touch screen so when I upgraded I gave it to my son to use as an MP3 player. I took the SIM card out but the only reason I knew to do that was because I have a friend that worked at AT&T who told me about it a few years ago. To me, letting him use it IS recycling.

Silverado_Phil 10 months ago

JMO and TP, so now you have gone from functional items (cell phones) to non-functional items (dresses, jewelry) (I guess it's safe to say you're both females) and comparing it as the same thing. Wow - funny how some people can rationalize anything. Old clothing and old, probably costume, jewelry (not gold or diamonds) is not the same as a functional piece of electonics. I guess I'm not as affluent or came from an affluent background as you both must have. LOL - I'll bet you both ENABLE your children. It's not your fault, it was the way you were raised. LOL

JMO 10 months ago

And a cell phone is not a gun, power tool or knife. So, also not the same. And "functional" is in the eye of the beholder. A cell phone is functional as a phone only if you have it covered under your contract - except for 911 calls, which most people forget and which is the point of the article.

You don't know one single THING about the way I was raised or how I raised my child, thank you very much! Not that it's any of your business, I was raised pretty much dirt poor. We're talking eligible for food stamps poor - although my parents were too proud to accept them - and buying your clothes at thrift stores poor. And if giving your child something no longer of any use to you to play with means I "enable" him, guilty as charged, although my kid is now far too old for toys.

TickledPink 10 months ago

Dresses and jewelry are still functional items even when they're outgrown. Your analogy with guns and power tools doesn't apply in the slightest. I'm showing my child that just because something doesn't perform the way it was intended that it doesn't have to be thrown away. So yes, I'm enabling my child to understand that most things can be reused and recycled and aren't just trash, even if their basic function no longer works. Golly gee, I wish more people would enable their kids like that.

Silverado_Phil 10 months ago

Enabling means both good behaviors and bad behaviors. And I am sure that TP and JMO are not representative of all the people that give their children cell phones to play. So you cannot speak for the majority, just yourselves. You two may very well be the exception. And not all cell phones have SIM cards. I think Verizon phones don't but I can't verify that at this moment.

You can rationalize and justify all you want, but until you see yourselves as others do, you can't tell others that they're wrong.

I had to earn everything in my life. So I take care of everything I own. If everything was given to me, I probably wouldn't take care of things, just run to mommy and daddy to bail me out or buy me another whatever I broke or lost, just like most of today's generation of kids and young adults.

So don't be getting your panties in a wad.

JMO 10 months ago

You can rationalize and justify all you want, but until you see yourselves as others do, you can't tell others that they're wrong.

Sounds to me like you should take your own advice. You are the only person here passing judgment.

Please forgive the "panties in a wad" comment, I agree that was a bit out of line, but you sounded awfully peeved over this issue and I really don't see the need for it. People simply need reminded that old phones, if charged, can still call 911. I expect most people would simply take the battery out.

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