It’s official; cell phones are taking over the world. You see people using them everywhere: in their cars, at toy stores,and in hospitals. Even people who’ve stridently stayed away from cell phones can’t argue against their convenience -- especially since pay phones now cost 50 cents.

I bought my first cell phone (“first” is surely a signpost marking the beginning of my abusive treatment towards my phones) when I was 18, with the intention of using it for emergencies only. Nowadays, emergencies are far from the primary function of cell phones. Instead, cell phones are overused communications devices, second to only e-mail.

One thing that I’ve noticed recently is that as cell phones have been getting sleeker, smaller, and packed with more features, their users have been getting younger.

Tapping into the so-called “’tween” market comprised of children between of ages 8 and 12, cell phone companies are now using aggressive marketing to set up a trend for these tweens to eventually be responsible consumers, come their teen years.

“Just by looking at the TV, you’ll notice that all cell phone companies are targeting youth and teen users as their big market,” said a source who asked that neither he nor the cell phone giant he works for be disclosed.

Our biggest form of silent communication in terms of direct contact, the TV, is highly suggestive -- not only in commercials, but in some cases, in making cell phones an integral part of any given program. In an episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, “Mean,” a cell phone is the primary piece of evidence linking a high school student to a murder. The whole idea of kids owning cell phones -- let alone murdering fellow students -- may seem a bit ludicrous since they can’t even legally agree to a contract. This is where most parents step in.

“I think, from my experience, that a lot of well-intentioned younger consumers pick up cell phones. The idea is not to rack up their bill on behalf of their parents, but... they haven’t had experience with the value of a dollar, or what a ‘per message’ charge means as far a text messaging goes,” explains the unnamed source.

Along with easy-to-use features like text messaging, you’ll find that most phones offered by cell phone makers come equipped with extra gadgets that may attract tweens, like still and video cameras, MP3 capabilities, and games. For example, Cingular Wireless offers a cell phone on their website for $19.99 that comes with a camera and access to America Online’s Instant Messaging service (or AIM, for you tech savvy folks).

$20 isn’t much to kid who is living at home and may work at McDonald’s or even deliver newspapers. But extra gadgets aside, though, some people don’t think that the boom in cell phone technology and the tween markets coincide with each other. “[It’s] too early to say what kind of an effect ‘tweens with daddy and mommy’s money will have on [cell phones],” said another source, via e-mail, who also requested to remain anonymous. “Obviously prices have gone down, but that’s like any other technology, and is just a part of business.”

Business is one thing, but it’s hard to deny the appeal of new cell phone technology for the youth market. According to Charlie Wolf of Needham and Co., an investment banking irm, Apple is expected to “sell 23.6 million iPods by 2006,” and with new features like iPrep, which allows any student / technophile to download a high school football team’s schedule and scores, it’s no wonder that cell phone companies are scrambling to get back into the MP3 technology.

When I mentioned MP3 technology to the first unnamed source, he noted that MP3 technology has advanced greatly since Samsung’s failure with it back during the height of Napster. Cell phone companies have high hopes for the technology by saying, “The flash drive technologies they were using at the time were kind of large, because that was still a couple of years before the iPod. But now, they have high capacity storage in a small amount of space; you’re going to see a lot more music being transferred to phones or being downloaded from over the air, like radio.”

With the media jumbles of TV and music being thrown at any given person through their cell phone, it’s apparent that though adults have the most in terms of expendable cash, ‘tweens will definitely reap the technological (and eventual financial) benefits of companies that are expediting these toys.

“It’s unavoidable and it’s where we’re heading,” said the second unnamed source. “So people need to buckle up, because ‘tweens with cell phones are going to flood the market.”