SHOULD PARENTS RESTRICT THE USE OF MOBILE PHONES?
A sea of young heads slouches forward lazily, as their eyes fervently remained glued to the screens of their mobile phones, while others take selfies of themselves and/or their friends for posting on various social media. Others are busy texting away and are emotionally and mentally detached from their friends and appear to be oblivious to what is happening around them. And that fact is made evident by the cord of the earpiece that is firmly plugged to their ears — snaking down their clothes and mostly terminating on the devices in their hands.
However, one thing that can’t be disputed is the fact that people can’t seem to get enough attention from kids these days, whether they are in the classrooms, walking to school or having a discussion with them, the scenario described above is prevalent and always seems to play out every time. Consequently, it is increasingly causing perceptive parents and experts alike to fret about the impact that the use and addiction to smartphones by young people might bring about in future.
For a lot of parents, it looks as if those days when little girls would dress up their dolls and spend endless hours playing with them, while the boys fight with their squirt guns and are not scared to play it rough in the sand seems long gone and buried in the past. Although some advocates of smartphones for children might want to argue that it is a technology that makes communication and contact with kids easy and efficient, still parents have every cause to be concerned because of the bad rap young people’s exposure to this technology is receiving on a daily basis.
To begin with, the mobile phone is a transmitter and receiver and works at a high frequency that is capable of impacting negatively on the bones, tissues, and skins of children’s brain which are not matured and developed enough to handle such exposure to radiation.
Again, children are inclined to become hooked on using smartphones thereby leading to a host of problems that are not limited to long hours spent on social media sites, talking and chatting with their friends and playing games on the net. As a result, their assignments and performance in examinations are almost certainly going to experience severe setbacks.
Another worrisome development is the fact that kids are likely to become exposed to disturbing online materials such as violence, pornography, and sexual contents, leading some experts to compare the use of mobile phones to cocaine and alcohol and should be considered as such.1 In addition, young boys playing video games on the internet have been known to be aggressive, endure lack of sleep, might become obese and suffer from attention disorders among several other issues.
Without any control in place, children are probably going to spend a lot of their time on social media networks like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, which could, in the long run, diminish their ability to interact and engage with friends, family and other people in face-to-face communication. Not understanding a broad range of human emotions could perhaps result in a generation of children that find it hard to bond, socialize and build relationships.
Furthermore, the need to check for messages and to be with their phones continually might adversely affect children’s relationships with members of the family back at home owing to the irritability they tend to display when they are not with it for an extended period.
In retrospect, it might not be all gloom and doom for children to use this digital technological device as some study works have revealed in the past. For instance, allowing children to have access to online games might help spark their creativity, enhance their social skills, become a bit responsible and assist in setting and achieving goals.2
Moreover, kids born between the early 1980s and early 2000s and who are often known as the millennials and whose populations have come to shape the current workforce are adept at the use of technology. And they bring a lot of business skills into the workplace in a profound way, and their interaction with mobile phones partly accounts for this positive attribute.3
CONCLUSION
Regardless of its merit, the picture painted above is quite worrisome and brings to fore the argument that parents should take the bull by the horn and introduce drastic measures before things deteriorate further. Do you think it is time for them to draw the line, put their foot down and rein in the use of these devices by their wards? At this point, it is essential to bear in mind that some influential CEOs of organizations in the Tech industry like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs have, at one time or the other placed similar limitations on their kids in the past.4, 5 So shouldn’t the average folks do likewise, after all, they might know some things that many are not even aware of!
All images are courtesy: www.pixabay.com
REFERENCES
- Bilton Nick, Steve Jobs Was a Low-Tech Parent, The New York Times, 10th September 2014, www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/fashion/steve-jobs-apple-was-a-low-tech-parent.html
- Ong Andres, what are the benefits of playing online games for children? Positive Parenting Connection, April 17, 2013 www.positiveparentingconnection.net/what-are-the-benefits-of-playing-online-games-for-children/
- Pells Rache, Primary school-age pupils sharing sexual content in the classroom, teachers warn, Independent, 12th April 2017, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/pupils-sexual-content-classroom-teachers-warn-smartphone-children-nasuwt-police-a7680806.html
- Pells Rache, Giving your child a smartphone is like giving them a gram of cocaine, says top addiction expert, Independent, 7th June 2017, www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/child-smart-phones-cocaine-addiction-expert-mandy-saligari-harley-street-charter-clinic-technology-a7777941.html
- PWC, Millennials at work Reshaping the workplace, PWC, 2014,
- Saha Mohana, Harmful Effects Of Smartphones On Children, Nischint, 3rd March 2017, www.nischint.com/harmful-effects-smartphones-children/
- ZILBER ARIEL, Bill Gates tells how he BANNED his kids from having mobile phones until they turned 14, loves McDonald's and wears a $10 Casio watch,
mailonline, 21st April 2017, www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4430812/Bill-Gates-didn-t-let-kids-phones-age-14.html
