Cell phones, pagers help parents keep track of the kids
BY LARRY MAGID
Special to the Mercury News
January 21, 2001One of my favorite parts in the movie ``Clueless'' was a scene where students on the campus of Beverly Hills High School chatted with each other via cell phone as they walked down the hall. It was a gag back then. Today it's a reality. My daughter Katherine, a junior at Gunn High School in Palo Alto, admits to sometimes using her phone to track down her friends on campus. With her calling plan, she pays 40 cents a minute for daytime use so, hopefully, she keeps those calls short. Unlike most of his friends, Daniel Cashmore, a sophomore at Gunn High School, doesn't have a cell phone, but he does carry a pager. ``I pay about $80 a year for my pager service, which is a lot cheaper than a cell phone,'' he says. Besides, he adds, ``with a pager, no one can interrupt me. I call people back when I have time.''Cashmore uses his pager to keep in touch with friends and his parents. His father, Patrick Cashmore, likes the idea of his son carrying a pager and has used it on a number of occasions to track him down. ``Daniel is good about calling us back,'' said the older Cashmore. He has no problem finding a phone to call his parents. ``Ninety percent of my friends have cell phones,'' Daniel said.
A clause in the California Education Code prohibits students from carrying pagers and cell phones but enforcement ``isn't our highest priority'' says Gunn High School Principal Scott Laurence. ``Some parents want their kids to be reachable at school,'' he said. ``If a student would like to carry a phone or pager, they need to have their parent write a note to explain the reason for its use. If it's a responsible reason, we give them a pass.'' Pagers had a negative connotation at one time but that's not usually the case at his school, Laurence said. Pagers and cell phones have long been used to help arrange drug deals and other nefarious acts but, in some parts of Silicon Valley, a young person is probably more likely to use the phone to conduct a stock transaction than a drug deal.
Laurence's biggest concern is that the devices not become a disruption. ``I have a few pagers in my desk drawer that were confiscated because they went off in class.'' Cashmore keeps his pager on ``buzz'' instead of allowing it to beep so it doesn't disrupt class or alert the teacher that he's carrying it. Cashmore carries a numeric pager that displays only numbers rather than the more expensive alphanumeric devices that display text or the even pricier two-way models that allow you to exchange text messages with other pagers or via e-mail.
A numeric pager, he says is fine for his use. ``Most of the time I recognize the phone numbers that come up.'' In addition, he and his friends have concocted some complex pager codes that they can use to exchange messages. ``6827,'' for example, means ``meet at Andrew's house.'' The use of pager codes has become so popular that Motorola has posted a Web page (www.motorola.com/MIMS/MSPG/Special/codes.html) to clue in the rest of us. 0001000 means `` I'm feeling mighty alone right now.'' If you want to tell someone you love him or her, just punch in 143. Beware of the dreaded 1330 -- ``I'm having a bad day and it's getting old'' and pity the poor person who gets a 1776 -- ``you're revolting.'' Read the numbers 017 upside down and you'll see why it means, ``I'm out of gas.''
High school principals in the United States have it easy compared to their counterparts in Europe, where ``short messaging systems'' (SMS) are standard on GSM phones. SMS allows users to ``chat'' or send instant messages from phone to phone -- the electronic equivalent of passing notes back and forth in school. It's actually becoming a discipline issue in schools, according to Trond Waage, Norway's Ombudsman for Children.
Although most new cell phones can now receive text messages, interactive SMS is just starting to become available in the United States. If you're thinking about getting your child a cell phone or a pager, spend some time thinking about the right plan. I made the mistake of getting my daughter a cell phone plan with limited weekday use and plenty of night and weekend minutes only to find out after a few months that she's using it far more during the day than I expected. We've had some discussions about her cutting back but we're also considering upgrading her plan so it more realistically reflects her usage.
Pagers and pager service come in a lot of different flavors, ranging from basic local one-way numeric paging for about $7 a month all the way to two-way national service, which typically costs about $25 a month plus usage fees if you exceed the number of messages that come with the plan. Unless your kid is on the road a lot, there's no need to go with a national plan, but if you're tempted to get a two-way service, consider Motorola's cool TalkAbout T900 pager that comes in Aqua Ice, ``Razberry'' Ice, Mystic Blue and Opaque Black. Verizon wireless offers the pager itself for $124.95 along with local service starting at $12.95 a month. With this device you cannot only send your kids a message, but they can respond using the pager's small -- but usable -- keyboard. I haven't given one to my kids but I have played with one myself and I find it reasonably easy to use, despite the small keyboard. Skytel offers the same pager for $150 (after rebate) plus $14.95 a month for service.
The pager has one feature that will make principal Scot Laurence happy. In addition to being able to vibrate instead of ring, it can be programmed to ``automatically turn off all alerts during pre-selected times'' so it won't interrupt class.
