Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
WHAT COULD BE DIFFERENT?
forget to take the phone out with them, forget to
turn the phone on, or forget to get credit. Eventu-
ally, as phone owning became more of a habit they
would generally take the phone to school and use
it to listen to music or use as a watch. For these
children the mobile phone was not really used as
a phone at all in school—it would be turned to
silent and most reported that they would forget
to turn it off silent even once they had left school
These students reported that the phone as a
time keeper was its primary role; one said 'If
you ask someone the time—they get their phone
out and have a look'. They also reported that
stealing phones was not really an issue anymore
as everyone they knew had one. They reported
that most phone users never used the camera at
school—mainly as a result of camera use being
discouraged by the school authorities.
The concerns that parents have about their
children needing to be in contact are especially
interesting when it comes to phone behaviors.
Amongst the cohort of children represented in
this focus group, most would be expected to have
around five or six numbers on their phones at age
10 with this number doubling every two years….
What was interesting to report was that most of the
children did not know their own mobile numbers
but also, although they had one or both parents
numbers in their phones, they did not know(i.e.
couldn't recount) the numbers of their parent's
mobile phones, not did they know a work number
where the parent could be found if needed.
Texting was generally less popular than re-
search reports would have us believe. One child
reported 'I don't like texting—you don't know
if they have got it.', this despite many service
providers making it very easy and almost cost
free to text. On investigating texting further it
became apparent that many children in this study
(who were UK children) didn't text because they
had anxieties about spelling things wrong. Others
felt texting took too long and remarked that they
made too many mistakes.
Despite the mobile phone being so popular with
young users, it clearly has several limitations. The
design ideas presented here address some of the
most serious, and the most common problems.
1. The issue of 'out of battery'. The phone
could have a preset message time—maybe
about 6pm that says—'put me on charge
now' this would encourage children to charge
the phone up and would also take advantage
of daytime charging (rather than overnight
charging) which is a habit children should
be discouraged from adopting as it is envi-
ronmentally damaging (with the transformer
being on all night).
2. With every charge the child might get one free
voice call to their nominated safe number.
This would normally be a parent's mobile
or a house phone. This would improve the
safety of the phone and overcome the 'out
of charge' problem.
3. To assist children in learning phone numbers,
especially important if the phone is stolen
or lost, suppliers could include a learning
mobile phone numbers facility on the phone.
For each phone number learned from the
phone list, the child might get one free music
download.
4. For languages that are known to be prob-
lematic, the texting function might include
a phonetic spell checker or a phonetic pre-
diction mode that would take children over
the hurdle of spelling.
5. As almost all the children reported forgetting
to switch their phones to general (from silent)
situation aware phones that turn themselves
onto sound once they leave school would be
a bonus.
6. The phone clock could be made much more
visible—it would be good not to have to turn
the phone on, or open it, to see the time.
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