Student blog post: Kids as young as THREE being given smartphones by their parents, new survey claims

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According to an article by The Sun newspaper, claims have been made that children as young as three years old are being given their own smartphones by their parents. The claim made by the newspaper seems to be correct of the survey results are honest. However, considering that coming from a poll of 1,000 Britons only 6 parents admitted to giving their child their own device between the ages of 3 and 4 years old. This puts this claim into perspective, as this is a very small percentage of individuals who took part in the poll.

 

Furthermore, the fact that the whole article has been based off of one finding and this finding has been used to create a headline is very misleading. It can cause the reader to think that the article is based more on children as young as three being given smartphones, however the larger majority of individuals (70%)  who took part in the poll provided evidence that their children had been given smartphones by the age of 13. Saying this, this claim does not seem to be much of a surprise because just before the age of 13 is when children start secondary school and may be seen to be more independent, where they may have needed to have a smartphone at this age.

The headline for this article could have been improved by drawing on facts about the majority results for the poll, rather than minor facts. For example saying something like “70% of parents admitted to giving their children smartphones by the age of 13.”

 
www.thesun.co.uk
CHILDREN as young as three are being given smartphones by their parents, a shock survey claims. The poll of 1,000 Brits found the majority of youngsters were TEN before getting their own device. Bu…
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