Children increasingly rely on personal technological devices such as cell phones to define themselves and create social circles apart from their families, changing the way they communicate with their parents, reports the New York Times. By 2010, 81 percent of Americans ages 5 to 24 will own a cell phone, up from 53 percent in 2005, according to IDC, a research company in Framingham, Mass., that tracks technology and consumer research. Social psychologists like Sherry Turkle, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has studied the social impact of mobile communications, say these trends are likely to continue as cell phones morph into mini handheld computers, social networking devices, and pint-size movie screens. "For kids, it has become an identity-shaping and psyche-changing object," Turkle said. "No one creates a new technology really understanding how it will be used or how it can change a society."

Click here for the full story