Parents Say 12 Is The Perfect Age To Own Your First Cell Phone

According to a new survey from American Express, parents think 12 is the appropriate age for a child to get his or her first phone.

This month's American Express Spending & Savings Tracker focused on back-to-school trends in spending, but had some interesting nuggets on phones and other gadgets.

The survey, which was conducted by Ebiquity, asked a random sample of 2,033 adults when they thought it was appropriate to buy their children a phone. Of the respondents, 64% said they would buy their child a phone between the ages of 10-14, 21% said 15-18, and 10% said younger than 10.

On average though, 12 was the winning age.

Some other fun stats from the survey: Parents expect to spend $529 (or 46% of their back-to-school budgets) on electronic devices this fall, and 77% of parents say their child uses electronic devices for learning.