Japan considers limits to children's cell phones

(CHICAGO) -- The Japanese government is concerned about how elementary and junior high school students are getting sucked into cyber-crimes--reportedly spending long hours exchanging e-mail messages and suffering other negative effects of cellphone overuse, said Masaharu Kuba, a government official.

"Japanese parents are giving cell phones to their children without giving it enough thought," he said. "In Japan, cell phones have become an expensive toy."

Officials claim that some youngsters are spending hours at night on e-mail with their friends. One fad is "the 30 minute rule," in which a child who doesn't respond to e-mail within half an hour, gets targeted and picked on by other schoolmates.

Other youngsters have become victims of Internet crimes. In one case, children sent in their own snapshots to a Web site and then ended up getting threatened for money, Kuba said.

Some Japanese children commute long distances by trains and buses to schools and cram-schools and parents rely on cell phones to keep in touch with their children.

About a third of Japanese sixth graders have cell phones--while 60 percent of ninth graders have them, according to the education ministry.

Cell phones tend to be more personal tools than personal computers. Parents find that what their children are doing with them are increasingly difficult to monitor, Kuba said. Parents typically pay about 4,000 yen ($39) a month for cell phone fees per child.

Recommendations have been submitted from an education reform panel to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's administration, and were approved this week. The panel is also seeking the help of cellphone makers to develop phones with only the talking function, and a GPS satellite-navigation feature to help ensure children's safety.