General Introduction
In this town meeting, our panel moderated by Anna Jones who is a ground crew person for an airline discussed whether elementary school students of Apollon should or could have cell phones.
As a background to this discussion, we know that already 50% of elementary school students have and use cellphones according to their parent's wish. Most people who give cellphones to their kids seem to think that the phone is a safety tool that should be used for emergency communication only or for tracking through GPS functions. One of the things that opponents to the use of cellphones are concerned with is the misuse of the phone's functions through game playing or inappropriate Internet use.
The panelists today were:
Amy Green: a 29 year old female doctor who felt that the safety features that a cell phone offered far outweighed the problems that are presented by the versatility of most cell phones. She also felt that proper education was necessary in order to ensure proper use of phones by students.
Alex Bell: a 28 year old female part time worker with a son, has already given her son a cell phone in order to keep track of him through its GPS function while she and her husband are at work. She feels more security with that arrangement.
Rie Chein: a 25 year old male blacksmith and weekend martial arts instructor feels that using a cell phone is not good for a child's eyes and that time spent using a cell phone is time that could otherwise be used playing outside. In short, the use of a cell phone is bad for the child's health.
Kate Hail: a 45 year old female civil servant feels that the use of a cell phone does not promote community and is a waste of time.
Rachel Williams: a 23 year old female dancer feels that cell phones Internet access puts children at risk of viewing improper web sites or being exploited.
Consensus
Unfortunately, the panel was not able to move toward an agreeable consensus.
Observations and Opinions
The discussion seemed to be moving toward a consensus in the end when panelists were asked by the audience whether they were trying to create a law about the use of cellphones or not. The panel agreed that it wanted to create a law, but agreement of the details couldn't be reached. Finally, the end decision they had was to make a rule that families would decide whether their children used cell phones or not.
This is exactly the situation that we have now!
Somehow I think that this discussion was not so effective. It took a long time to get going and panelists didn't seem to see a road to compromise.
