'Smartphone' kids ignorant about history but full of next generation tech ideas

As per a new study, though children are clueless about telephone history, they are full of ideas for the future communication.

The BT poll of 1,000 seven to 11-year-olds found that one in three children had "no idea" what a 19th-century telephone was and 16 percent think the internet and mobiles were invented before the toilet, the Mirror reported.

40 percent had never heard of Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the phone in 1876, while 44 per cent didn't know what a telegram was.

However, the kids believed the next step in technology would be smartphones able to "send and receive smells" and a total of 20 per cent thought that laptops would vanish within 10 years.

Sandeep Raithatha, Head of Innovation Central at BT, said that the children have some amazing ideas for the next generation of communications technology and if their predictions are correct they could see a huge change in the way they live and interact within the next few decades.

He noted that it is surprising that the digital age has led to a knowledge gap, with the innovators of tomorrow having less understanding of where today's developments have originated.