With the decreasing cost and increasing availability of technology, tech addiction has become a worldwide mental health problem. Children and teenagers are the most vulnerable to such addiction. South Korea, with more than 100 percent cell phone access (some people have more than one) and 80 percent internet penetration, is easily the most wired country in the world.
But its emphasis and pride in growth of digital technology has had adverse effects, most notably in internet addiction. Eighteen percent of South Korean teenagers are addicted to technology, so much so that the government has decided to intervene and provide “boot camps” for addicted children, where they are made to perform physical activities. They are provided counseling and made to compare the time they spend with their family members and with their gadgets. They are then asked to connect to their loved ones by hugging them. [break]
Outlandish as it may seem, this is the future that we and every other country is facing. Children today are born with gadgets around them, and grow up using them. In the western world, children’s potties now come with ipad stands, and it is not long before the trend makes inroads into our part of the world. Since children are introduced to technology so young, they are more at risk of addiction than adults who have known a life without gadgets. When they use a gadget constantly for more than three hours a day, it’s a sign of addiction. They become cranky and depressed when their gadgets are taken away, their withdrawal symptoms eerily similar to those of alcoholics and drug addicts.
Earlier generation parents were concerned about their children’s addiction to television, worrying that it provided no stimulus and made them dumb. Then came video games, which taught children many mental skills like strategic thinking and persistence, but also brought along addiction. But the reach of video games was still limited to a few enthusiasts.
Today, the reach of smartphones is many times higher, and growing. Smartphones have the potential to provide all kind of stimulus, because they can connect to everything from games to educational materials. And yet, research tells us that children are performing worse on tests of intelligence. And as their emotional lives are lived out in their phones, they are losing emotional connections with the real world and people.
Increasingly, it will get difficult for parents to control their children’s gadget uses. But again, they are the only ones who can do so. It is up to the parents to raise children with minimal contact with gadgets. Parents should remember that though it may be easy, pacifying young children with gadgets is the fastest way to addiction. Buying gadgets for children should be deferred until the last possible moment, because monitoring the use of smartphones is much harder than monitoring the use of a television or PC. Ultimately, there is no escaping from the ubiquitous presence of technology, but the least we can do is be aware of its dangers and keep it from taking over the lives of our children.
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