”Smapho" for Kids Now Coming Up

Opinions divided over whether the kids should or should not own smapho or smartphones, a new type smapho for kids is coming up for sale this month - branded Tone Mobile developed by the Tsutaya Group in DVD rental business, reported July 25.

This new kids-model features a mechanism whereby night time-early morning calls, 22:00-06:00, are banned and it stops functioning the moment the user steps into areas preset in advance - schools, regardless of regular or crammer.

The product is an answer to the general concern among so many who worry the kids over using smapho, as revealed by surveys done by fashion magazines subscribed largely by kids-rearing mothers.

President Hiroki Ishida of Tsutaya comments:

"Smapho can be an effective tool to protect and keep in touch with the kids, but can also induce bullying and turn their attention away from school work.

"This new terminal is our attempt to jointly cater for the mothers' worries and the kids' needs - a new sort of service others are yet to offer."

A survey conducted by the Cabinet Office targeting kids in the age brackets of 10 through 17 shows that over a half (50.4%) of the elementary school kids own smapho - twice as many over the 5 five years since 2011 (20.8%).

More junior high school students have come to own smapho over the same period - from 47.8% to 62.5%.

The more the number of mobile phones owned by them, the more the criminal cases via LINE, Twitter, and other SNS means.

NTT Docomo and Softbank also marketed a new terminal equipped with an application targeting the kids. It's made less kiddy in appearance to attract kids and offers "banning" functions in three stages: elementary school kids, junior and senior high school students. (Nathan Shiga) 

Source: NHK