What is the right age when children can have a smartphone?

A number of headlines about the possible impact of mobile phone and social networks by children are enough to make each parent withdraw from such an idea. Even VIPs are not immune to this modern problem.

So the famous singer Madona has recently been convicted of giving her children mobile phones since the age of 13, and that she would no longer make such a mistake. On the other hand, you yourself consider your mobile phone to be an essential tool for daily life, from emails and online purchases to video phones and family photo albums.

There are still many unanswered questions about the long-term effects of intelligent phones and social media on children and teenagers. But existing research provides some evidence of the risks and main benefits to them. While there is no comprehensive evidence to show that the possession of a telephone or the use of social media is harmful to the welfare of children in general, this may not tell the full story.

Most of the studies so far focus on teenagers and not younger age groups. And new evidence shows that there may be specific stages of development, where children are most vulnerable to negative effects. Furthermore, experts agree on some key factors to consider when deciding whether your child is ready for a smartphone and what you should do after he has one.

Data from Ocom, the communications regulator in the United Kingdom, shows that the overwhelming majority of children over 11 possess an intelligent phone. In the U.S., 37 percent of parents of children 9-11 say their child has his smartphone.

And a study in 19 European countries has found that 80 percent of children aged 9-16 used a smartphone to sail daily or almost every day online. Kendys Ogers, a professor of psychological science at the University of California, U.S.A., says that youths have a limited or weak perception of online dangers.

Ogres analyzed 6 met-analysis, analyzing the link between the use of digital technology and the mental health of children and teenagers, as well as other studies on a large scale. It found no lasting connection between using teen technology and their psilological well - being.

Another revision by Amy Orben, an experimental psychologist at Cambridge University in Britain, found non - final evidence. She concluded that it is impossible to know whether technology was causing a decline in welfare or vice versa.

Because most of the research in this field is not of very high quality. Experts say communication and sincerity are essential when it comes to how parents approach the use of smartphones by young people, including discussions on what they are watching and experiencing on the internet.

On the other hand, for some youths, a mobile phone can become a rescue device to find a new form of access and social networks, such as a disabled person or a place to look for answers to urgent health questions.

But for the most part, when they use their own phone for communication, children talk to friends and family. While intelligent phones are often blamed for their children's spending less time in the wild playing, a Danish study on 1150-year-olds found some evidence that phones actually give children independent mobility, boosting their parents ' sense of security, and helping them to sail into unknown environments.

The children said that phones improved their experience abroad by listening to music and keeping in touch with parents and friends. Of course, the ability to be in almost constant communication with peers is not without its dangers. In a study published earlier this year, Orben and her colleagues discovered a <x0-secondary development sensitivity” where use of social media is accompanied by a later period of life's lowest satisfaction at specific ages during adolescence.

Analyzing the data from over 17,000 participants aged 1050, researchers found that the highest use of social media at 1150 years of age for girls and 1450 years for boys envisioned a lower life satisfaction a year later. The opposite was also true: the lowest use of social media at that age envisioned a higher satisfaction from life next year.

This also harmonizes with the fact that girls tend to exceed puberty earlier than boys, researchers say, although there is not enough evidence to say that this is the cause of time difference. For many parents, buying a smartphone for a child is a practical decision.

In many cases, it's parents who want the youngest children to have telephones, so they can keep in touch all day, and they can coordinate their access from school”- says Agers. But it can also be seen as a historic moment on the road to adulthood.

I think for children this gives them a sense of independence and responsibility. This is obviously something parents need to consider: are their children at a stage where they are responsible enough to have their own phone? ”- says Anja Stevic, a researcher at the communications department at the University of Vienna, Austria.

One factor parents should not overlook is how comfortable they feel when their child has a smartphone. In a study by Stevic and his colleagues, he found that when parents felt that they had a lack of control over the use of their children's intelligent telephone, both parents and children reported more conflicts on the matter. /Take a cut from BBC World.al/