Probably varies a lot based on where you grew up. I got my first phone when I was 9, in 2006, and was among the last in my class to get one. Though phone plans were really cheap by then in Finland, partially due to the largest phone manufacturer (back then) Nokia being Finnish, and our telecom operators being in tight competition. (We’ve three separate carriers with country wide networks, as was the case back in the early 2000’s as well)
I’d say the turning point here was 2003 when Nokia launched the model 1100, which was dirt cheap. I vaguely remember the price eventually falling as low as 19 € in a sale, at which point the phone cost about the same as your typical phone plan per month.
Probably. I was born closer to the millennium and in the US. I don’t remember my peers having phones until at least middle school (11-14 years old)
Teens definitely had them. But elementary school kids no. Not like now for sure. Maybe a few did but (if I recall, obviously I wasn’t paying bills then) US phone plans were quite expensive with many paying PER TEXT SENT. So for the kids that did have them probably couldn’t do much but call, so I never saw them taking them out or anything during class.
It wasn’t uncommon for kids to play around with old PDAs or phones, but no active service so more a camera/shitty games.
Then again maybe I just didn’t go to the higher income schools lmao.
Probably varies a lot based on where you grew up. I got my first phone when I was 9, in 2006, and was among the last in my class to get one. Though phone plans were really cheap by then in Finland, partially due to the largest phone manufacturer (back then) Nokia being Finnish, and our telecom operators being in tight competition. (We’ve three separate carriers with country wide networks, as was the case back in the early 2000’s as well)
I’d say the turning point here was 2003 when Nokia launched the model 1100, which was dirt cheap. I vaguely remember the price eventually falling as low as 19 € in a sale, at which point the phone cost about the same as your typical phone plan per month.
Probably. I was born closer to the millennium and in the US. I don’t remember my peers having phones until at least middle school (11-14 years old)
Teens definitely had them. But elementary school kids no. Not like now for sure. Maybe a few did but (if I recall, obviously I wasn’t paying bills then) US phone plans were quite expensive with many paying PER TEXT SENT. So for the kids that did have them probably couldn’t do much but call, so I never saw them taking them out or anything during class.
It wasn’t uncommon for kids to play around with old PDAs or phones, but no active service so more a camera/shitty games.
Then again maybe I just didn’t go to the higher income schools lmao.