Mobile phone addiction observes growth among children 

STRAP: Child counsellors observed developmental delays, speech delay, and falling grades in school among older children who spend excessive time on mobile phone.

PUNE: NP NEWS 24 ONLINE- To distract a crying baby, we often give our mobile phones. If we are busy doing some important work, we give our toddlers phone so they are caught-up with something. Previously, a child receives its first phone after entering junior college but now as a child reaches the age of 12, he or she demands for a mobile phone. For fraction of minutes, we do not realise what harm we cause the child on a long run.

According to the psychiatrist, tendency of children who are obsessed with mobile phones, to become violent and threaten to inflict injury on themselves or others is on the rise.

Child counsellor and de-addiction psychiatrists have pointed out cases of mobile addiction among children as small as three to four years. They have observed developmental delays, speech delay, and falling grades in school among older children who spend excessive time on cell phones.

On 1^st January, a 13-year-old who had frequent arguments with his parents over his obsession with the mobile phone, committed suicide in Pune after his parents took away his mobile.

According to a report, there is an outbreak in true sense as there is a rise of 100 per cent in cases of mobile addiction among children, as compared to five years ago.

Five years ago, we hardly saw a case of such a nature but now almost every day we are seeing one case of mobile addiction. Parents come to us when the issue gets critical and the children fail to listen to them.

Tables have turned around these days as complaints of children hitting parents, threatening to commit suicide, indulging in self-harm among others if they are not given the phone are more common which is observed among the age of 2 years to teenager.

Who to be blamed?  it is often parents who give their smartphones to children to keep them engaged and soon, the screen time increases gradually before the parents realise that there is a problem as it starts acting as their babysitter.

Parents belief that their children will become smarter or tech-savvy by spending hours on mobile phones. Instead, they have developmental and psychological issues like dependency, stress, anxiety and developmental issues.

Interestingly, Anuradha Sahasrabudhe, director of Childline 1098, a helpline service for children, said, many children have confessed to being addicted to smartphones during Childline’s school outreach events. She said that some even confessed to watching porn on phones which were not observed five years ago.

She said that parents seemed to have “replaced their parenthood with gadgets” putting their children to great risk from online predators.