Alvin's Educational Technology Blog

It seems like each one of my kids has gotten a cell phone at a younger age than her older sibling.  Usually the deciding factor has been a school activity which requires regular after school meetings or practices.  If we need to pick someone up and do not know for sure when the bus is going to be back from the event, a cell phone is a real time saver.

Now the youngest wants a cell phone before she gets to middle school.  There is not a good reason to get her one.  All the elementary special events happen during the school day.  We drive her to every game or other extra curricular activity.  In the last year the only time she may have needed a cell phone was when she spent a night with a friend in another county and that was a stretch.

We have a home phone and if she needs to talk to someone, she can use that.  What she does not have is texting.  Every kid with a cell phone spends a lot of time texting and she is being left out of the mix.  We had a long conversation about texting and she assured me that she would only be sending about 100 messages a month.  So we could buy her the basic plan and she would get by.  I don’t think she’s realized that is only about three text messages a day.

Fortunately, I found a free solution.  Google provided me with a free phone number via Google Voice.  That number will ring the home phone if someone calls it.  Google also provides free text messaging using that number.  She texts her friends and none of them are the wiser about her not owning a cell phone.

There is one caveat.  To use Google Voice for texting, she will have to use her computer instead of a phone.  That should not be a problem.  She has a netbook that works at home and at any location with public wireless.  If she really needs it in the car, she could connect to my cell phone’s wireless hot spot.  All of our family members have wifi, so she can connect when we are visiting them.  Thank you Google.

Of course, she still wants a cell phone for Christmas.