EE, which is owned by BT, said it aims to improve children's "digital wellbeing" after receiving increasing requests for guidance from parents.
It said that under-11s should be given "non-smart" devices that have similar capabilities as old brick phones.
The recommendation - announced for the start of the new school year - comes amid growing concern about the effects of smartphone and internet usage on children's mental health and behaviour.
Two men have been jailed for stirring up hatred on social media during widespread disorder across parts of the UK.
Tyler Kay, 26, was sentenced to 38 months in prison for publishing "utterly repulsive, racist" posts on X.
Jordan Parlour, 28, received a 20-month prison sentence for publishing written material intended to stir racial hatred on Facebook.
As in all Ofcom's reports, Ofcom provides detail about different groups of children, highlighting age, socioeconomic background and gender wherever it is useful or possible to do so.
When Ofcom first commissioned this longitudinal study 10 years ago, several of the children in this year’s research weren’t yet born. It was 2014, later dubbed the “year of the selfie”1 in the wake of that year’s icebucket challenge2, the #nomakeupselfie3 and the “selfie that broke Twitter”. A year of laughs, cold-water gasps, attempts at authenticity and a group of famous people who took their own picture at the Oscars.
Nearly a quarter of UK five-to-seven-year-olds now have their own smartphone, Ofcom research suggests.
Social media use also rose in the age group over last year with nearly two in five using messaging service WhatsApp, despite its minimum age of 13.
The communications regulator warned parental enforcement of rules "appeared to be diminishing."
This user-friendly tool offers a wide array of customization options. Users start with a randomly generated human figure and can modify numerous aspects like age, gender, ethnicity, body type, and pose, in addition to hair color, style, clothing, and accessories—kind of like The Sims.
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