OSAKA — Each morning, Hisako Kuroda sends her sons, Kenichi, 11, and Jun, 8, off to elementary school in Osaka. The kids depart with their textbooks and homework. But one item they are not carrying is a cell phone.
"Some parents give their children cell phones because they are worried about their safety. I'm more worried about the kinds of distractions in the classroom cell phones provide, and the quality of education in a school where students spend more time on their cell phones than in concentrating on their lessons," Kuroda said.
Her worries are shared by Osaka Gov. Toru Hashimoto and a growing number of people within the central government, as calls for curbing cell phone use among children mount nationwide.