Walt Disney Co. is…to start selling cellphone services to teenagers and their parents as it hopes to carve a niche in the U.S. market by giving parents the option to take strict control of their children’s wireless use.
[Disney] will let parents set spending limits or control when their child can use their cellphone, who they can talk to, how many text messages or photographs they can send and cut off most calls if the child has gone over their limit.
They can also check where their child is through a location technology in the phones and can manage the service from their own Disney cellphone or on the Internet if they do not themselves own a Disney device.
Father knows best.
And maybe Mommy wants to check up on Daddy, too?
This is certainly not appropriate for older teens.
You have to ask yourself if a child who needs this kind of supervision is old enough for a cell phone at all. However, with the demise of the public pay-phone, maybe NAZI cell phones for kids isn’t a bad idea.
I agree with Sag,
“This isn’t a mandatory device, it’s an option. I like options.”
Why shouldn’t parents be allowed to have some control over their child’s phone usage, they are children after all… 🙂
I don’t see this as any more evil than the various “Net Nanny” software variants on computers.
If I was a teen and had a Disney phone I would keep it off and not let my friends see it. It might be OK for an 8 year old.
Have to agree with the general tone. Work with two single moms with pre-teens who have little judgement about how much things cost, and how it gets paid for. They both use prepaid plans with limited minutes to keep in touch with the kids for things like early dismissal of school, and to let the kids have some freedom of where they go after school.
Cell phones are becoming a critical part of single parenting, and most pre-teens, or early teens don’t have the judgement to realize that sending photots to friends is not just a bonding experience, it’s expensive if used indiscrimenently.