Mobile phone ownership at young age can impact negatively on girls’ development

Getting a mobile phone at a young age affects the well-being of girls, new research has found.

The research by the ESRI comes less than a month after another body of work found children who own a phone at the age of nine performed less well in tests - in both reading and maths - by the time they reach 13, prompting fresh calls for more detailed research by policymakers.