But lifestyle has a downside, such as inability to relate face-to-face
WIRED KIDS: Young children showing a 'kid's mobile phone', which is equipped with a GPS tracking device, in Tokyo. -- PHOTO: AFP
TOKYO - YOUNG Japanese people are evolving a new lifestyle for the 21st century based on the cellphones that few are now able to live without.
While the wired world they now inhabit holds enormous advantages for learning and communicating, it also brings a downside, say experts who point to a rise in cyberbullying and a growing inability among teenagers to deal with other people face to face.
'Kids say what's most important to them, next to their own lives, is their cellphone,' said Mr Masashi Yasukawa, head of the private National Web Counselling Council.
'They are moving their thumbs while eating or watching television,' he said.
The passion in 20-year-old Ayumi Chiba's voice backs up this assertion.
'My life is impossible without it,' she says of her cellphone. 'I used to pretend I was sick and leave school early when I forgot to take it with me.'
Starting young
# About one in three Japanese primary school students aged seven to 12 use cellphones.
# About 60 per cent of junior high school students aged around 14 carry cellphones.
# By the time they get to senior high school when they reach 16, that figure shoots up to 96 per cent.
# Cellphones are commonly used for book reading, listening to music, chatting with friends and surfing the Internet.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Sociology professor Hideki Nakagawa at Tokyo's Nihon University said cellphones had become 'an obsession' for youngsters.
'They feel insecure without cellphones, just the way sales people do without their name cards,' he said.
Education professor Tetsuro Saito of Kawamura Gakuen Women's University near Tokyo, said children seemed to want the security of communicating with someone, without the bother of dealing with a real person.
'Communication ability is bound to decline as cellphones and other devices are now getting between people,' he said.
As the multi-faceted cellphone takes centrestage in teen life, it plays a number of roles - including that of a weapon which children can wield with no thought of the consequences.
Mr Yasukawa recalls the case of a 15-year-old girl who regularly received messages telling her: 'Die,' 'You're a nuisance' and 'You smell'.
They turned out to have been sent by a friend in whom she had confided and who told her not to take the messages too seriously.
'The girl who was doing the bullying confessed it made her feel good to see the unease spreading on her friend's face,' Mr Yasukawa said.
'It's a very scary world,' he said. 'Parents don't know there's a very scary world behind cellphone screens.'
As they reveal personal information about themselves, children can become prey for fraudsters and paedophiles, as only about 1 per cent have blocks on potentially harmful material.
But on protected sites such as school bulletin boards that do block adults, bullies are free to anonymously post comments without any teacher oversight or intervention.
A survey of 1,600 junior high school students conducted by Prof Saito found that students can also use their cellphones as an emotional crutch, and the more problems they have at home, the more dependent they seem to become on their phones.
More than 60 per cent of students who said they do not enjoy being with their families send 20 or more e-mail on their phones a day, compared with 35 per cent of those happy with their families.
Ms Kanae Yokoyama, 36, is facing trial for beating and spraining the neck of her 15-year-old daughter after catching her secretly using her cellphone in November.
The girl had been prohibited from using her phone as the bill had hit 120,000 yen (S$1,570) in October, mostly racked up by downloading music and playing games, say local police.
They said the mother had a history of abusing her daughter.
'Considering she was often absent from school, the mobile phone may have been her sole 'friend' to spend her days with,' a police official said.
