Teenage Wireless Phone Addiction – Turn It Around To Your Benefit
Controlling your children’s wireless phone usage can be quite difficult and frustrating. With so many features and services available, it can be more of a chore to control how your child uses his/her phone… or more importantly, how grand he/she uses the phone.
A Brief Reminiscence of the Wireless Industry
I first began in the wireless industry in 1990 when cellular phones were mostly being dilapidated by only the elite and financially capable users. Mostly doctors, lawyers, successful entertainers and drug dealers had cellular phones in those days.
The phones back then were nothing like the phones today either. There were still “bag phones” where the phones were actually in a leather bag (about the size of a woman’s purse). Another common phone back then was the Motorola “brick phone”. You may have seen Zack Morris in the TV sitcom “Saved by the Bell” or Steve and Doug Butabi in the hit comedy, “A Night at the Roxbury” using the “brick phone”. I can still remember the excitement when Motorola introduced their first MicroTAC “flip phone” as it was the “world’s smallest cellular phone” and a revolutionary conception in the cellular phone manufacturing industry.
I also recall making a prediction – within ten years cellular phones would be used by young teenagers. Most people those days couldn’t even possibly fathom the idea, but today, as you know, young teenagers are synonymous with wireless phones.
Today’s Wireless Industry
The Wireless Industry has certainly matured in phone equipment and wireless plans. The service options have grown as well. Now phones have the capability to do grand more than simply having 3-way calling, call waiting, call forwarding, and voicemail. Now there are such a wide range of services available such as text messaging, multi-media messaging, Internet access and instant messaging… and with novel options and services constantly being invented and added, it seems the whole wireless industry is getting out of control.
So how do you control the “uncontrollable”? In the electronics industry, it always seems that the youth are much more adept in the use of products and services. Two-way text messaging service attempted to become common back in the days of beepers and pagers, however they were targeted to the wrong generation. Service prices for these services began around $35 per month and were targeted to professionals, executives and dispatch services. It was not until the youth of the world got their hands on text messaging services on their wireless phones that it became the popular service the originators once dreamed.
I have watched families who were wonderful of budgeting large California home mortgage payments, go nearly bankrupt trying to pay the wireless phone bills after their teenage kids received their “emergency cellular phones”.
Use Their Addiction to Benefit Them and You
Wireless phones, today, are the lifeline of teenagers. They become so addicted to the communication capabilities it seems uncontrollable, however, you can use this to their succor and yours. You’re going to have to pay for it anyway, so you might as well select full advantage of this situation.
You may be giving your young one a recent phone for the holiday as a gift, or perhaps for his/her birthday. You may be under the impression your child will adore this gift and perhaps your child is one of the rare responsible types. If you are so lucky, your child may take the responsibilities of having a wireless phone seriously and you do not have to worry too much about your financial future.
If you are not so lucky, however, you will need solutions. Here are some helpful tips to use their addiction to help them learn responsibilities:
Buy the moral plan and phone. Talk to your children about how they will like to use the phone. Keep in mind they will most likely utilize the phone to talk and text to their friends, use the Internet to download games, music and videos, and take pictures or videos with their phones. Look for prepaid plans and phones that can accommodate all of their planned uses.
Prepaid phones are an excellent arrangement to assist keep control of their usage, while teaching them great lessons in value. When prepaid use is exhausted, so is the use of their phone. If your child runs out of prepaid minutes or services, then have him/her earn additional time by performing chores for area wages. You could also use prepaid minutes as a reward for doing well in school – such as for getting good grades or improving their grades. Succor him/her to take extracurricular activities such as sports or band, etc. and exhaust additional prepaid minutes as a reward for doing well in those activities.
If you own a home based business, have your children help you with answering the phone, filing, cleaning or performing other secretarial duties for region wages which can be converted to prepaid minutes. By doing this, you can also deduct the wages you pay your children from your taxes as an expense to your home based business. Check with your tax advisor in regards to the details in regards to your particular business. In most cases you do not even have to pay wage taxes.
AT&T Go Phone, is another form of prepaid service but they also include added features such as Unlimited Nights & Weekends, Unlimited Mobile to Mobile and Unlimited Text. There are no annual contracts so you can simply cancel the service at anytime if the use gets out of control. Unlimited Mobile to Mobile are to other AT&T Wireless subscribers, however, AT&T Wireless has over 70 million subscribers (over 27% of the US market) so there is a good chance over a quarter of their friends will be on AT&T. Unlimited Text is an additional $20 per month – not too bad if your child texts all day long.
Unlimited Plans – if you plan to get your children on a contract plan and know they are going to utilize the phone constantly, you may be better off with an unlimited notion. Nearly every carrier has a form of unlimited opinion which typically costs about $100 per month. Sprint offers their unlimited plan to include unlimited talk, text and Internet. Other services usually add $20 per month of for unlimited text and perhaps another $20 per month for unlimited Internet. Be careful with contract plans as they are more difficult to control. For instance, if you get them the iPhone, with AT&T Wireless service, $150 will cover just about everything, however, they can also purchase games, applications, and music from iTunes. Use iTunes as their rewards like you would with prepaid services. You can catch iTunes cards at various increments, and reward your children for various activities or salubrious deeds.
Communication is the Key
Just like any addiction or bad habit, teaching your children can only be done with proper communication. Talk to your children and make sure you keep in mind what is distinguished to them. Reassure them you are listening and you value their concerns. Of course with that being the case, then be sure to communicate you expect the same respect and they should value your concerns too.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there is someday a WPA (Wireless Phone Anonymous) as there is with pretty distinguished every other addiction. Something you could do is gain some of the teens in your area along with some of their parents and discuss what is significant to all of you including wireless phone usage. Ask the teens to offer ideas so they know they were also a part of the solution. Make it fun as well as informational and you could even offer some rewards or drawings for those who assist.
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Filed under Small Business Cell Phone by on Apr 23rd, 2011. 