3rd graders have cell phones?

The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal reports: "Kids in the third grade are, on average, eight years old. Nowadays, 20 percent of third-grade boys and 18 percent of third-grade girls already have a cell phone, according to a 2011 study of 20,766 Massachusetts elementary, middle, and high school students. By the time the kids reach fifth grade, 39% of the kids have cell phones, and phone saturation is nearly complete by middle school, when more than 83% of the students have a device." The implications of this may prove benign. Maybe they won't. But today's K-12 set will certainly be different when they grow up, assuming their digital umbilical cords will let them go to do so.