Technology

Differences Between Microsoft Word 2003 and Microsoft Word 2007: Overview

Microsoft Word, one of the most widely used Microsoft applications, allows users to write and create, view, copy, paste, save, edit, share and print text documents, etc. Microsoft Word application rules the word processing market as it allows users to embellish their text documents by inserting pictures and animated images, charts, diagrams, tables, figures and shapes etc.; and by using text in different styles, fonts, colors and languages, etc. at the same time. Since its release, Microsoft Word has greatly reduced the burden on users of creating multiple documents at a time, copying them to another Word file, and running grammar and spell checking, etc. Over time, Microsoft Word (MS-Word) also progressed to new versions, such as MS-Word 2003 and 2007. Here are some of the important features that distinguish MS-Word 2007 and MS-Word 2007:

Interface:

Microsoft-Word 2003: Includes several menu tabs, as well as toolbars that include many buttons. These buttons/functions can be customized to give access to commands.

Microsoft-Word 2007: Uses a user-friendly interface known as ‘Ribbon’. Includes 7 visualizations menu tabs. ‘Home’, ‘Page layout’, ‘References’, ‘Emails’, ‘Review’ and ‘View’. There is an eighth tab also called ‘Developer’ which, however, is disabled by default. Each ribbon tab contains different buttons along with dropdown menus. However, compared to MS-Word 2003, the Ribbon interface of MS-Word 2007 cannot be customized.

File format:

MS-Word 2003 – Uses the DOC file format to save text documents. However, users will need to download a compatibility pack to open DOCX files.

MS-Word 2007 – Uses the DOCX file format, which is an open standard XML format. It is the widely used file format for opening XML files. Users also have the option to save their documents/files in DOC format.

Document Inspector:

MS-Word 2003: Includes ‘Remove Hidden Data’ plugin, which is a tool to remove hidden or visible information from the document, including personal information, etc. However, the plugin does not prompt a user to make changes to document properties.

MS-Word 2007: Includes the ‘Inspect Document’ command which, when executed, provides a list of options including versions, comments, annotations, document properties, custom XML data, personal information, or revisions, among others. The Inspect Document feature allows users to remove the above-mentioned options based on their requirements.

Quick parts:

MS-Word 2003: Includes ‘AutoText’ feature that allows users to define, edit, insert and save text.

MS-Word 2007 – Includes ‘Quick Parts’ that allow users to keep plain text or add formatting or graphics. The feature will be available in the ‘Insert’ tab.

Quick access to the toolbar:

Word 2003: Does not include such a feature and the user has to go through the entire menu tab to get access to frequently used commands like save, edit or undo etc.

Word 2007: Includes ‘Quick Access Toolbar’ which is designed to save commands used over and over again by a user when creating a text document. These commands or functions can be anything from undo, repeat, clip art or save, etc. You can get instant access to such commands or functions by customizing your ‘Quick Access Toolbar’. You just need to add/insert your frequently used commands/features to the toolbar by simply right clicking on them and then clicking ‘Add to Quick Access Toolbar’.

Mail Merge Wizard:

MS-Word 2003: Includes the ‘Mail Merge Wizard’ which allows the user to send personalized messages. However, the wizard has serious problems with Microsoft Excel attachments. It means that you will not be able to import your data for emailing from Microsoft Excel documents.

MS-Word 2007 – It has an improved ‘Mail Merge Wizard’ that allows the user to write and send personalized messages to all recipients without having to go through the CC and BCC process in the mail account. Once you have written your mail to all the recipients, the wizard will forward them to your Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express outbox. Whenever you connect to the Internet in your Microsoft Outlook, your Outlook will automatically send all the personalized messages to each of the addresses. Thus, the wizard saves you wonderfully from writing letters or documents to each and every recipient with your individual information.

The comparison of the features has led us to the conclusion that MS-Word 2007 is the advanced word processor and has a clear advantage over MS-Word 2003. However, regardless of which of the two software applications you have, it is possible that you experience problems with them at any time. . In fact, you can search for Microsoft-certified technical support to solve your problems online.

Technology

Automate Twitter to send hundreds of new friends to your Facebook account

I’ll show you how to automate Twitter to send hundreds, even thousands of new friends to your Facebook account. So how different is Twitter from Facebook?

Simply, Facebook is a very different platform. It allows us to interact more with our friends and their friends, thus multiplying our marketing efforts, while Twitter is a pretty static platform, but you can achieve a certain viral effect on Twitter when people retweet your tweets.

First you will need to open a Twitter and Facebook account

We will also need to join Social Oomph, this is also free, type Social Oomph in Google search to get the web address.

Once you have your Twitter account up and running and have put information about yourself on your profile, what you do, etc., put a nice photo of yourself on your profile and include your URL on your Squeeze page, website, or blog.

We’ll be using Twitter and Facebook to grow our list, so any URL you put on your profile should point somewhere where you have a signup form.

But first things first, we first need to automate our Twitter friend collection efforts. For this, we will use automation software like Tweet Adder, just Google Tweet Adder.

I have been using this software for several months. I only suggest as Niche for the software to search. Find people on Twitter who tweet about this niche.

Then I can set it up to follow people automatically. Once you follow people, they will start following you. What you have now is a set of ready friends, all on autopilot.

Now, following people on Twitter is not a guarantee that they will choose to follow you. In fact, there will probably always be a 10-20% difference in the number of people you choose to follow, compared to the number of people who actually follow you. You will almost always follow more people than follow you. This is fine, this keeps Twitter happy, I’ll explain it in more detail in Part 2.

So we’ve got our Twitter account set up and now we’re targeting people who like or tweet about internet marketing to be our friends.

Next we go to Facebook. We set up our account and put a nice photo on our profile, preferably one of you smiling. Now you can place a photo of you or you and your partner.

If possible, make it a happy smile, as you’ll want to add value to your visitors’ experience, and a miserable face with tombstone black teeth just doesn’t cut it in the fast-paced world of internet marketing (lol)… people want be friends with happy positive people

Having an attractive personality says a lot about you to potential friends. Inbound marketing is the most important thing right now and it’s all about interacting with your prospects, sharing information with them and getting to know them properly.

Okay, in the box under your profile picture, we put up a short bio about what we do, maybe something like this: this is my short bio:

“I’ll show you how to succeed in making all the money you could ever want!” I then follow it up with a link to my landing page.

You don’t need to say much here as you have plenty of chances to tell everyone about yourself and what you are like on your real profile. Use your profile space wisely if you are in the internet marketing business, or any other business, and are trying to attract friends who may be prospects for your business.

People can see your photos, they can see your videos and comments, so if you’re using Facebook for professional purposes, it’s best to keep it professional. First impressions are very important. It’s great to show your family photos, but if you have embarrassing photos on your profile, it might be worth removing them.

Before I explain the “Meat and potatoes” of how to do this. We are going to focus on Twitter for a moment, now some people don’t particularly like Twitter as it is considered impersonal unlike social networking sites like Facebook.

Twitter tends to be more of a messaging system, rather than a true social platform; Unfortunately people on Twitter don’t tend to interact much, my Twitter Newsfeed is more like a continuous feed of spammy links interspersed with the occasional piece of interesting news.

I can’t say I really know, any more than a handful of my Twitter followers. I don’t blame them, I blame myself as I should be messaging them more and getting to know them. By uploading them to Facebook, in my opinion, we have a better platform to do it.

So what we’re going to do here is take as many of our Twitter followers as possible and turn them into our Facebook friends.

This gives us the opportunity to interact with them appropriately and to cultivate better relationships; this will lead to better networking opportunities with people we probably never would have gotten to know very well.

OK, so we have our Twitter account up and running, we also have our Facebook account open.

Now we need to get our free Social Oomph account up and running: log in and do the following:

There are many more features in Social Oomph that I am explaining here today. Because getting into all the features of Social Oomph is beyond

the scope of this advice today. It would take an entire article just to explain all the other great features of the Social Oomph app.

Social Oomph will allow you to do some cool things like embed your blog posts into your social networks automatically, follow your Twitter followers automatically, etc., etc.

If you want, you can also upgrade to the Pro version, which has many more great features. But to be honest, I prefer FREE… it’s cheaper! (LOL)

For the purposes of today’s tip, we’re going to use the “Direct Messages” feature. Once you’ve logged into your account, you’ll see this on your back office home page, which is in the middle of the left hand side of the page, in the blue shaded panels.

Click on “Direct Messages”

Once you’ve added your Twitter account(s) to Social Oomph, you’ll now be able to send direct messages to all of your followers; You can also do it directly through your Twitter account, but unless you automate this, it can take forever to reach ALL of them.

However, with Social Oomph, you can send a fully automated message to each of your Twitter followers. And to any followers you have from now on. – EVERYTHING on AUTOMATIC PILOT.

What I do is I INVITE my Twitter followers to join me as a friend on Facebook. In this way, I can get to know them properly and interact with them.

Now you are going to add your personal direct message, here is what you need to do. Go to “Direct Message” and then “Schedule New DM”

This is the message I use:

Let’s be friends on Facebook. I love connecting with interesting people ~ Keith (include your company URL here) now your direct message to them will not have a clickable hyperlink, currently the Twitter DM feature does not allow that, however , if you want to be your friend, you should cut and paste the link in your browser. You can add a note to the message to explain this.

You see, it’s kind of hard to say NO to that request, isn’t it? – Who doesn’t want to be considered “interesting”?

Now once you have sent this message via Oomph social to all your followers (don’t worry if you don’t have any yet)

then you can set it up automatically, to send the message to all your NEW followers too, using the automation menu.

Here’s a great tutorial to show you how to do this, step by step.

Therefore, many of your Twitter followers will become your Facebook friends. All on autopilot.

If you then click on “Social Accounts” in the left-hand panel, then under “Automation Statistics”, you can see exactly how many followers you have.

For more information on how to make money, click here

Technology

Advantages and disadvantages of online games

More and more people are addicted to online games. With tons of new and exciting games to choose from, people of all ages are now looking for great online games. Today, there are online gift cards that you can buy to buy the games you want to play. These cards can even be used to purchase your favorite songs, movies, and TV shows. The experts shared some of the pros and cons of online gaming.

Advantage

You can try it before you buy – Online gaming systems offer demos made for players so they can try to play that potential purchase and decide how much they would like before investing. In addition, you can also buy games right there, without the need to run to the store.

Access to exclusive content – This is one of the best reasons to choose to play online games. You have access to exclusive content for whatever you’re playing.

Comunicate with other people – Online games will allow people to interact while playing the game, helping people to maintain great relationships by communicating with family and friends around the world. Certainly this will be very useful for players. Teamwork skills will be reinforced. Also, more tactical and strategic elements will be added to the game. In turn, this can help boost your memory and develop lateral thinking.

Competitive – Allows you to compare how you play with different players. There will certainly be a feel-good factor to knowing that you are a much better player than someone else. Being aware that you are not against artificial intelligence will install more competitiveness. And since you’re not always going to be the best, you’ll learn how to display good showmanship.

Disadvantages

system updates – If you are about to download the game you want or maybe play online, there will be a time when a system update will suddenly appear and delay your game time. You have to wait and then reboot.

Server problems or failures – Glitches are viruses in the game that cause it to run erratically. This is really a problem with all types of games; however, they are more common in online games. You may experience a number of server difficulties that are very frustrating for players.

piracy – There have been incidents of breaching copyright laws, scandals, and allowing users to hack games illegally. And these situations have presented a huge problem for the world of online gaming. In fact, the scandal generated a lot of controversies, so there were some games that were closed.

When playing online games, consider knowing some of the pros and cons involved. And if you’ve finally decided to jump in, know that there are affordable gift cards you can buy to buy the games you want. More about online cards here.

Technology

Anonymous Internet browsing – Browse anonymously

The Internet, where on one hand it provides valuable information, becomes highly vulnerable when it comes to security and confidentiality. I emphasize online safety and anonymity in this article, and working around that is very effective for us and our family.

Every day we hear stories of “unknown IP” port scans and attacks on personal computers that are not well protected, or even if they are protected, you don’t even want to see the access attempts in your logs, why should anyone try to access your PC? ?. In such a case, there are work rounds that could ensure anonymity and security online. We recommend VPN connection to hide our real IP behind other IP servers and gateway.

What happens is that you dial into any of the multiple servers that are provided with a VPN account, once connected, all your internet-linked traffic goes through that server. So it’s like the server IP is getting the data you want and passing it to you on the back end, all in real time of course. Thus, you hide your real IP and protect yourself. You don’t feel any kind of problem or hindrance while connected with virtual private network setup, and it feels like you are browsing through your own default internet gateway. Internet speed is almost the same and you have the option to connect to the server that offers the best speed.

Apart from security, the VPN prevents all kinds of spying. Your ISP may be spying on you and logging all your activities, but you certainly don’t want anyone knowing where you go and what you do when you’re online. So once connected, the ISP doesn’t see your online activity. Even when you participate in open online discussions, blogs, etc., there is always a chance that someone might know your identity, but again a VPN account comes to your rescue!

Technology

Using Google AdWords Scheduling to Make Your Ads More Successful

Google AdWords is packed with settings that many users, webmasters, campaign managers, and general site owners don’t even use, but in your campaign settings control area there’s one setting you really need to know about: Google AdWords Scheduler. Making good use of AdWords Scheduler can help take your ads and campaigns one step further, squeezing every penny out of your campaign.

When you set up your campaign, the ad(s) are set to run 24/7, which means that if you’re operating on a small budget, your campaign stretches a long way and your ads may show with less frequently. , especially towards the end of the campaign. This can cause big problems if you need your campaign to show as often as possible, something most campaign managers really should want!

The scheduler allows you to tell Google AdWords when your ads should appear, which is relevant to your local campaign and time settings. For example, if you only want your ad to run between 9am and 5pm, Monday through Friday, you can set this up quickly and easily, which will mean you’ll save many hours over the weekend when your ad isn’t showing. .

To put this into specific detail, take a look at the formula below.

There are seven days in the week and 24 hours per day, with a total of 168 hours (24 x 7) in your normal week. If you have a budget of £100 a month, in a 30 day month your daily budget becomes £3.33 a day, which if you try to make it show evenly per day results in 0.14p to use every hour (3.33 / 24). As many webmasters know, you won’t get many clicks if your budget is only 14p an hour.

But, if you reduce the number of hours your ad needs to show, you’ll start to see how you can get your ad to show a little more often during those hours, because your daily budget increases and therefore stretches further before run. outside.

Let’s say you only want your ad to show between 9am and 5pm every day of the week, which means your ad will be able to show 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, which equates to 40 hours. So right off the bat, instead of your small budget having to last 168 hours a week, you’ve cut it down to 40 hours a week with a time scale that fits your ad, meaning your hourly budget it converts to about 41p (3.33/8) an hour which equates to quite a difference.

Having an hourly budget of 14 pence or 41 pence makes a big difference when you think that if you’re spending an average of 10 pence per click, your ad might be clicked four times per hour instead of once. It’s fair to say that if you get four clicks compared to one, hopefully you’ll have a better chance of getting all the important conversions, sales, or inquiries.

Basically, you can really use the ad scheduler to your advantage by reducing the number of hours your small budget is stretched, increasing the chances of getting more impressions and therefore more clicks for your ad and overall campaign. You don’t have to stick to the 9am to 5pm hours we mention here, but by using the hours to follow the best times for your business, it means you should end up getting a little more out of your cost-per-click campaign.

Technology

Improve your efficiency by collaborating technology with business operations

People now travel all over the world for personal and professional reasons. The business environment has undergone a great change in terms of meetings with clients, business partners, bureaucrats, etc. in the last decade. According to research by the US Travel Association, direct spending on domestic and international business travel was about $307.2 billion in 2016.

To create a worldwide brand, one has to market their product globally. To do that, workshops, seminars, meetings are normal and everything requires a travel plan, however, more important than a good strategy is technology in any industry. A company can greatly benefit from collaborating with the right technology in the right way.

The main benefits of using technology for commercial transportation are:

Presence of mind:

One of the main benefits that technology provides in the business field is the presence of mind. People can fully focus on the current task without wondering what’s scheduled for the next one. The innovation of the Apple Watch is one of those great inventions. Now people can regularly check their mailbox, calendar and messages while sitting in a meeting and not disturb the energy of the room by checking everything via mobile phone over and over again.

Airport rides made easy:

Frequent travelers will surely understand the pain of airport trips where everything needs to be at hand; from passport to boarding pass. Instead of searching for things every time on your handband, you can easily store your plane ticket, boarding pass details on your watch and scan them when needed at airport security checkpoints. This will surely save you enough time that you can use to read a great novel or create a presentation in the waiting area.

Communication Luxury:

Most of the traveler’s hands are busy carrying luggage. In such cases, picking up the chauffeur calls and knowing where your chauffeur is is a bit of a difficult task. Once again, the Apple Watch is a lifesaver here. You can take calls and pick up your car with just a click on the clock. This helps you leave the airport in style without creating a mess with your luggage while you find your smartphone in your bag.

When technology is combined with business it makes life and tasks much easier. The use of these technologies differs from person to person, but the benefits they provide are innumerable.

Technology

Resume Writing Tips: How to Get the Interviews You Want

Do you need help writing your resume? Listen, don’t worry, you’re not alone, and there’s nothing wrong with getting a little free help writing a resume.

So let’s get started, okay? What I have here are some selection tips you can use to add some profitability (aka spice) to your job search, and make your phone ring with offers for job interviews. you want:

Resume Writing Tip #1: Please make sure your contact information is correct. Don’t laugh or roll your eyes, this is much more valuable advice than you might think. This is one of the reasons I put this resume writing tip in the first place. I’ve seen resumes with misspelled email addresses, wrong phone numbers, even no phone number! So don’t be too quick to brush this aside – we all make little mistakes here and there, sometimes with the simplest of things.

Resume Writing Tip #2: Write a clear objective that not only tells what position you are applying for, but also how you can benefit the company. That may sound complicated, I know, but it’s not. Unfortunately, this advice is also commonly ignored. Writing a resume without an objective is like a piñata without candy. It is empty, meaningless. Hiring managers won’t be going through your resume, trying to figure out what you want to do. Here is an example of a summary objective that is clear and even offers a benefit to the company:

Objective: Consummate copyeditor ready to apply 6+ years of exceptional writing and editing communication skills to support the goals of a quality-focused organization.

Resume Writing Tip #3: Your platinum achievements. This is where many job seekers will hit a brick wall. This resume writing tip is terribly critical. Dry lists of job duties are not enough to make your resume stand out. Need detailed achievements and include specific numbers, percentages, help with details! They give credibility to their achievements. Here’s a resume writing sample of what I mean:

  • Edit school newsletter. (This sounds too bland, mediocre. Any editor can do this, it sounds too dry)
  • Currently created and edited The educator’s voicea monthly newsletter that keeps parents informed of past and upcoming school events and activities. (This is much better, more specific and detailed. It is a great and unique achievement, the title and purpose of the newsletter is provided, and it stands out much more)

Resume Writing Tip #4: Spelling, spelling… oh boy. Think you can slip in with a misspelling or two? Forget it. Not even one will be tolerated. Misspellings are totally unprofessional and turn hiring managers off in an instant. They think, why would I want this person to be part of my team, when they can’t even spell? It’s a good idea to run a spell checker. But don’t stop there, be sure to check your spelling yourself. Read it out loud, it can help you catch more mistakes. And then after this, have 1-3 of your most trusted and detail-oriented friends review it for you. It’s all worth the effort, believe me.

Resume Writing Tip #5: A quote or two would do wonders on your resume. Has he ever received a performance review that he was proud of? Well, take a sentence or two from that and put it on his resume. Putting citations on your resume is priceless and definitely something that will help you stand out. Here’s a resume writing sample of a quote: “Mrs. Daniels is talented, uplifting, and brightens up the school with her beautiful artwork.” (Comments from a parent about a preschool teacher).

So go ahead and take advantage of these resume writing tips. Once applied, they can only help improve your job search. Use them on your resume and carry that cell phone with you always. How about this… why not put your favorite tune on your doorbell: The Sopranos, The Lone Ranger, Chopin? Please don’t laugh, mine is the HBO drama Rome.

Then you can enjoy the ringing of your cell phone while reveling in the thought that it could be another interview call, or even better, the ultimate job offer.

Technology

Find the best business online

The best online businesses are run by people who have a high degree of self-control. They also have long-term goals and know what they need to know to run a business that sometimes has multiple employees. They must also have a good sense of financial knowledge so that they can maintain the profitability of the company on an ongoing basis and finance new projects.

Some of the best online businesses are run by people with business degrees. They may have gone to school knowing they wanted to go into business, or they may have had another career field in mind that required business training. However, many internet businesses have been started by people with no business background, giving the general public a good opportunity to start their own successful online business.

You can learn many lessons from the creators of these online businesses. By studying how they started their business and the steps they took to increase traffic to their websites, we can all benefit and use the knowledge to grow our own online businesses.

Some examples of successful businesses include Google, MySpace, and Youtube. Each of these websites were made with the idea of ​​serving the people. Google gives millions of users around the world the ability to find what they are looking for on the Internet. Google has also grown with the times since it started and has improved its user experience by constantly updating the search algorithm and finding new sites. In addition, they have offered users other options for their Internet needs, such as Gmail, Google Docs, Gtalk, and Google News.

Watching Google grow they show a perfect example of constantly expanding to increase the happiness of their audience, with this of course comes more people who love to use Google and become loyal to it, this shows us why it is the largest search engine available. with the best sense of growth.

MySpace was started by a person who wanted to network with friends and family and share their online life with them. By sharing your idea and your website with people, your own idea has been able to inspire millions to share their lives online as well. Everyone seems to be connected in their extended network, and people can share a lot or a little about themselves with their friends and family online. From photos to videos to your favorite songs, Myspace brings individuality to people in the online world.

Another of the best online businesses is YouTube. The founders created this site so that people from all over the world could share their favorite videos. People could easily make a video and upload it to share with millions. You could show some of your individuality, you could teach others or even promote your website. Many people around the world loved the idea of ​​being able to make and share their own videos. You can find entertainment videos, music videos, news videos, and user-created documentaries on YouTube.

Each of these sites had a long-term plan and invested time and money in their business in order to succeed. By studying their business styles and the time and money they invested, we can all learn a little more about starting our own online business.

Technology

5 proven ways to make money online

There are endless ways that you can use to make money online. Some will earn you big profits, while others will leave you working for pennies. If you are looking to make money online, here are the top 5 proven ways that you can consider.

Webinar Training

One of the ways you can make a significant amount of money online is through webinar training. A webinar is an online event that takes place in real time. The people present can interact with each other and with the presenters by sending and receiving messages in real time.

If you are an expert in a certain field, you can use webinars to train people who are interested in what you offer. To be successful in webinar training, it’s important that you have a recognized online presence in your niche, area, or expertise.

Start an online course

Another way to make money online is to start your own online course. The courses present a good source of passive income. When you create a course, you can sell it for many years with few or no updates, depending on the topic.

It’s easy to start a course and you can set the price you want. According to Teachable.com, their instructors earn more than $5,200 per month, and most start earning money immediately after launching their courses.

People are hardwired to seek education and skills, so if you have a good course that really offers value, it becomes easy to build a seven figure business with it.

affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is the act of selling products owned by others for a commission. You can use affiliate networks like ClickBank and others or search for other online businesses and companies that have their own affiliate offers.

You can easily make money from affiliate marketing if you have a blog with a large following. You can sell products or services that your blog followers are interested in and generate passive income without much effort.

drop shipping

With drop shipping, you sell products through your site to interested people without dealing with inventory or delivery. It is also a great way to earn money online without a large initial investment.

Become a freelancer

Finally, you can become a freelancer and engage in lucrative ventures like content marketing, digital marketing and advertising, web analytics, web design, graphic design, and others. These are all freelance careers that are scalable and capable of generating a decent amount of income. Many people have created multi-million dollar online businesses offering such services.

Other good ways to make money online include starting a blog, becoming an online tutor, offering virtual assistant services, and working with online companies like Uber, Lyft, and Amazon to offer driver and delivery services.

If you are looking to make money online, the time to start is now. If you are lucky, you can earn money immediately; But for most businesses, it will take time to gain traction and start generating decent revenue.

Technology

Does your child need a cell phone?

In the modern age, children as young as five are begging their parents for cell phones. Most parents wonder when their child is the right age to have a cell phone. That would depend on the circumstances. When deciding if your child is ready for their own cell phone, there are several things to consider.

Most parents want to buy cell phones for their children so that the youngsters can stay in touch when they are away from home. These devices are useful if they need to be carried and allow you to communicate with them in an emergency. And as scary as it is, a cell phone may be your only contact with your child during a school shooting or terrorist attack.

Another advantage of a cell phone for your teen is the fact that he can call and tell you where he is and when he plans to be home. The added feature of a GPS can ensure that the teen is where she is supposed to be.

The only reason you might want a younger child to have a cell phone is to allow them to communicate with you when you’re not at school, and many schools now prohibit cell phone use on their property. So if you’re buying a phone for a kid who spends most of his time in school, he might as well not even bother. You won’t be able to use it there anyway. Another factor is the age of the child. If a child is under ten years old, he really shouldn’t be alone anyway, so he should be able to use the cell phone that belongs to the supervising adult. Therefore, buying a phone for a younger child is not a necessity.

Another disadvantage of buying a cell phone for any of your children is the added expense. While you can keep careful track of available minutes and rarely use text messaging, kids don’t keep track of the minutes they use, and some teens send as many text messages a day as their fingers can type. Your child can also download games to their cell phone, which adds additional costs. These practices can lead to you receiving an astronomical phone bill. That doesn’t include the additional cost if your child loses or breaks her cell phone.

While some parents see the added independence a cell phone can give a child as an advantage, it could also be seen as a disadvantage. While it gives your child more freedom, it’s a freedom to communicate with the outside world without your supervision. This can open the way for sex offenders to befriend your child without her knowledge.

If you decide to allow your child to have a cell phone, you may want to purchase a prepaid phone to keep the price within reason. You must also put limits on the amount of use and details of what the phone will be used for. Also take the time to talk to your child about not accepting text messages from anyone they don’t know.

Cell phones are becoming a way of life for most Americans. While a teenager will probably need one of these devices, a younger child may not. In the end, the choice is up to you.