A recent survey looking at mobile phone ownership and behaviour within families has found that the majority of parents say that a child should be allowed to possess a mobile phone by the age of 11.

Parents also say, however, that they agree with this age mainly because they caved in to pester power.

The survey carried out by Intersperience, a consumer research organisation, questioned 1,000 young people aged 8 to 18 and their families.

Other interesting results include 42% of children saying they wanted a mobile phone to be able to control other machines such as TV sets. This contrasts with just 24% of adults stating the same thing.

Parents also told researchers they were prepared to pay around £20 per month to cover the cost of their children using a mobile phone.

Children seemingly are keener on the idea of using their smartphones for a variety of activities, including paying bills. This was confirmed by Paul Hudson, Intersperience’s chief executive. He said: “For under-18s the future is uncompromisingly mobile. They have a vision of a powerful multi-functional mobile which can connect with and control an array of other devices and services from a Sky+ box to home heating or lighting systems and functions we haven’t even thought of yet.”

This contrasts again with parents’ views. They are apparently scared stiff of using mobile devices to pay for purchases. The major issue is security.