Mobile Phones and my four year old twins

Mobile phones are now as common, or infact more common than washing machines and fridges. I don’t even have a house phone anymore! I have a landline, but it’s purely for Internet purposes only.

Everywhere you look nowadays people have a mobile phone in their hands (probably playing Pokemon Go haha!) So recently it has been interesting to watch my four year old twins. 

Over the last few weeks I have noticed a dramatic change in our four year old twin girls. Yes they are growing up and learning at a phenomenal speed. One of biggest changes has been watching them copying mum and dad. 

A lot of their learning comes from mimicking what we do as parents and I have to be totally truthful that is worrying because it highlights some of things I do and I’m not sure if these are good lessons for them. 

Over the last few days their toy mobile phones have been the chosen toy to play with, but they are not entirely playing. 

As a blogger the most important possession I own is my iPhone. Almost everything I do related to my blog is done on my phone. It’s rarely a few feet away from me and it actually bothers me if I can’t see it. It’s quite frightening that my reliance on my phone is at such a high level.

Often I am posting on Instagram or Facebook or tweeting out my latest post. So it always seems to be in my right hand. My use of my mobile phone is obsessive. It’s the first thing I look at in the morning and the last thing at night. Surely that can’t be right? The truth is it is not. If it vibrates or pings I have to look at it to see what is happening. 

The twins have all of sudden picked up on this and the other morning at the park it became even more obvious how my children are learning by copying us. The mobile phone being an ideal example. I am guilty, as is my wife of taking a lot photos of the twins, and quite often uploading them to social media. Also filming the girls on Facebook live. One of the twins loves watching Lego friends on Netflix. The show is American and of course she now calls her phone a cell phone.  

At the park the other day this all came home to haunt me, but also worry me about how engrossed the girls might become with technology and will I be to blame with what is quite likely my own obsession with technology and social media. Am I causing the problem?

The twins were pretending to do Facebook live with their phones, taking pictures and then saying they need to post them, taking selfies and all the time their phones had to be close at hand for them to capture those moments. I worry it might affect their learning curve and also their social interaction with others. The mobile phone has possibly taken a lot of the general conversation that we used to have in our lives. Sometimes our lives are lived out on social media. Is that a good thing? I’m not sure, but we are all guilty of posting about our lives online. 

My dread and disappointment in myself was huge I had a feeling of OMG! What have I taught our four year old twins. Or is it a fact that technology will play a huge part in their lives, which of course includes social media with its obvious plus, but as we know, can have many negative issues. 

My older children all had mobile phones at quite a young age. Although the circumstances were different as I was divorced from their mother and it enabled me to have hassle free contact at any time with them and not having to go through their mother.

However, phones didn’t have the access to the Internet or the mobile apps of today so it was really just a form of commucation. Of course the older children now all have iPhones and like me are constantly on them, so their four year old sisters are also watching and mimicking their older siblings. 

The big question for me is how old will they be before they are asking for a mobile phone of their own and at what age is it acceptable for them to have one? Will the age of our children get lower for them to be owning their first mobile phone and will peer pressure add to the problem?

The smartphone has amazing capabilities and all the social media channels are there to be used with such great ease. The truth is people rely on the mobile phone that is not going to change anytime soon. What at one time could only have been done on a desktop computer is now done on a smartphone. 

Would love to know what you think! How old would you like your child to be before they own a mobile phone? What is an acceptable age?