DNA Edit – Mobile menace: Phone addiction among kids a growing problem

The smartphone is now a babysitter — pacifying bawling babies with musical cartoons or nursery rhymes. By the time these infants will grow up, they will be as much addicted to the screen as the generation preceding them. As of now, mobile phones have virtually taken over the lives of teenagers with boys and girls in the age group of 13-16 spending a good two hours with the device. And then there are those whose engagement can stretch beyond that duration, signifying a deepening of addiction. A survey by Dr Harshalkumar Mahajan from Mumbai’s Sion Hospital confirms the worst fears: children who spend more than two hours with phones have low grades. In other words, they suffer from lack of concentration that manifests in their inability to pursue studies diligently. The difference in behavioural patterns between kids who spend two hours or more on the phone and those who use it for less than an hour is also noticeable.

Child specialists are of the opinion that instant accessibility and portability of mobile devices make them potentially more likely to displace human interactions and other enriching activities. This means that kids become inward, and do not engage with their peers. Smartphones have also turned children into couch potatoes because they rarely show up on the playground. This in turn has become a contributing factor in rising obesity among children. They are also prone to suffer from eye problems due to prolonged exposure to the screen. In the age of working parents and nuclear families, children manage to evade scrutiny easily. What was earlier considered a first-world problem is now a growing menace in India. And this problem is going to aggravate in future. India will be the fastest growing smartphone market for the next few years. With easy accessibility to feature-rich phones, it will be extremely difficult to wean kids away from the screen. But kids need to be detached from mobiles for their own good.