By: Vic Hargrave

My take on this is that cell phones are a good thing for teenagers to have so parents and kids can stay in touch in case of emergencies, but smartphones are of dubious value.

What they offer over conventional cell phones is mostly additional distractions, in the form of Internet apps of all kinds, at considerable extra cost.

In my view teenagers don’t *need* and shouldn’t have smartphones. They are a luxury that they can get for themselves when they are adults, mature enough to handle them and have good jobs to pay for them, out of their own pockets.

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I work for Trend Micro and all opinions expressed here are my own.