(KLFY) -- Parents in Louisiana who complain about kids getting smartphones too young have only themselves, or their peers, to blame.

According to a study by Secure Data Recovery, parents in Louisiana give their children smartphones earliest in the nation with the average child getting theirs by age 9.

Secure Data Recovery is a data recovery service for hard drives, phones and other data storage devices. The survey asked what age they gave their child a smartphone, if they feel they gave it at the right age, what rules they have in place for usage, and more.

The results also indicated that parents think they should have waited to hand over the technology. Although Louisiana parents give their kids a smartphone by age 9 on average, they wish they would have waited until their child was 12.

Parents in Florida and Virginia also give their children a phone by age 9 on average, though both states would have rather waited until their child was 11.

The states that make their kids wait the longest in the study were Mississippi, Maine and Idoho, where kids get their smartphones just before their 12th birthday on average.

In general, 1 in 5 parents wish they had given their child a smartphone later than they had. One outlier to this, however, is New York, where the average parent wishes they would have given their child a phone earlier in life.

When asked about rules they set for their children's smartphone use, 83% of parents said they use location tracking, 80% insist they be able to look through their child’s phone whenever they want and 78% of parents say they restrict downloads of certain apps. 

Only 1% of parents surveyed said they believe children should not have a smartphone.

Read the entire study here.

Latest news