Contrary to theories that mobile phones can be an unwelcome distraction for children, a study by GSMA found no effective correlation between children's ownership and usage of mobile phones and the time they spent on other activities.
The survey also found that the main factor affecting children's mobile phone ownership is their age -- for each additional year in age, an additional 4% of children own a mobile phone.
The network effect of friends starting to use mobile phones was also found to be a key trigger for take up of phones by children aged nine to 18.
With help from NTT DoCoMo's Mobile Society Research Institute and KT Freetel, GSMA has published the study which compares mobile phone use by 6,000 children in five countries at different stages in their development -- Japan, Korea, China, India and Mexico.