Smartphone Addiction and its Influence on Kids’ Mental Development

Is your kid always glued to the smartphone? Do they check the phone for notification or are always chatting with friends and family or busy playing mobile games? Do they get cranky when you do not give them phones? If your answers are yes, then your kid is probably addicted to smartphones. Smartphone addiction is a common problem, and it is recognized amongst many children. It is affecting their eye sights, mental growth and to some extent, physical growth too!

Reasons why children are addicted to smartphones

Let us see the major impacts of mobile and its effect on kids:

Pleasure: It has been found that humans find happiness whenever they receive a message or notification. These are a sort of rewards give them comfort as dopamine is released in the brain. The happier they feel with such rewards, the more they want to use it

It has become a part of their bodies: You must have observed how anxious a child feels if he cannot find his phone! This is because the phone has become an extended self without which children feel lost. Mobile addiction is affecting kids mental health and building up anxiety in children too.

Need to socialize: With so much hype to social media, children want to socialize all the time. They enjoy posting pictures, likes, and comments and also connect to people through various social media platforms via chats and groups.

Games and other apps:Smartphones offer many quite addictive gaming apps. Children enjoy playing games for long hours as the graphics are attractive and keep them busy and glued to the screen.

Cons of using Smartphones

Mobile Addiction not only leads to anxiety, depression, but also disturbed sleep, damage eyes and the list goes on. However, here are the top 3 cons of using smartphones by the children:

Eyesight problems: With smaller screen size just near to the eyes, can damage the eyesight.

Disturbed sleep: Children may have insomnia or take a long time to fall asleep. Using smartphones just before sleeping can cause disturbing sleep as the blue light spectrum suppresses the production of melatonin, a sleep producing hormone. The electromagnetic fields disturb sleep and also affect mental peace. This is what makes people get up from the sleep when they keep the phones nearby.

Mental health problems: Increase in usage of screen activities can lead to mental health problems. Children who are into virtual life communication suffer from anxiety and depression.

How fast smartphones are affecting children’s mental health?

With the increasing demand of smartphones among children, there is a fear that smartphones can hamper the kids’ mental health by a great extent. Harmful radiation from the phone and overexposure to the screen can affect brain development. It affects the learning ability of the children as the circuits in the brain are neglected due to exposure of screen time. Mobile radiation and its effectsalong with overexposure to the screen can affect brain development.It also affects children’s potential to communicate and interact in the real world. They become anxious when they don’t get to use cell phones. In some cases, children get depressed and become detached from the real world. Smartphones are acting faster on children’s mental ability to grow and learn, and hence parents must ensure to limit the usage of the smartphones and keep them occupied in the real world by planning some fun activities.

5 Ways to make your child free from Phone addiction

Below listed are some prominent methods you can apply to make children free from this addiction:

Set boundaries: Parents should set some strict and clear limitations on the children to put in limit the usage of smartphones.

Children learn from parents: Parents should themselves restrict themselves by not using smartphones at a specific family time and weekend outings or family get-together.

Create NO-SMARTPHONE zones: Try to use phones only in the living room and make sure, not to use mobile phones in the kitchen and the sleeping room premises.

Install specialized parenting apps: - Monitor your child’s device usage and block inappropriate content by using parental control software.

Spend real-time with children: Interact with your kids during fun activities or introduce an active family time. Please help them by letting them enjoy the original world, to get along without a cell phone and treasure the bliss of life.

Mobile addiction is one of the significant causes of eye damage, and its harmful radiation is significantly affecting the kids’ mental health. Hence, it is essential that parents must ensure that the screen time and mobile usage and access is balanced and monitored well between kids and mobile. This is to ensure that smartphones remain a boon in their overall growth and development.

Stress Management and Physical Exercise, the Secret Towards Healthy Life

As each of us gets through our day-to-day, we often feel moments of stress. Stress is one of the most common words that we use to describe our state of being. According to the Mental Health Foundation, UK, stress is the feeling of being overwhelmed or being unable to cope and when pressures seem too much or unmanageable. In our 21st century modern lifestyle, stress is unavoidable; however, if we continue to experience stress every day without taking steps to de-stress, it can lead to chronic illnesses.

Good and bad stress

According to researchers, not all stresses are bad. In fact, some stresses can be beneficial. For instance, when you’re running a marathon and find yourself close to the finish line, or when you have to go up on stage and deliver a speech, the pressure you feel could be overwhelming and intense, but it helps push you over the finish line. These kinds of stresses do not have any negative effects on our physical or mental health, and we can return to ‘resting’ state very quickly. Stress also triggers a ‘flight or fight’ response in certain situations that can actually help us survive certain situations; like examinations, job interviews and so on.

But long-term stress can have deleterious effects on our health. Financial stress, sudden loss of a loved one, an accident, difficulties in relationships at work or home, relocation and many such factors could lead to unimaginable stress. These stressorscan contribute to the deterioration of our mental health,leading to anxiety and depressionand even impact the normal functioning of our heart, weaken our immune system, and impact our emotional wellbeing.

Watch out for these stress signals

According to Mental Health Foundation, UK , work-related stress accounts for an average of 23.9 days of work lost every year for every person who is affected by stress. So what are some of the signs of stress that we must all keep a look out for? Stress affects our behaviors and emotional wellbeing, soirritability, fear, sudden bouts of anger, sadness, or a feeling of extreme frustration, are some of the feelings we experience when confronted with extreme levels of continuous stress. Our behaviors also undergo subtle changes: becoming indecisive or extremely inflexible and rigid, or withdrawn and not wanting to have any social interactions. Suddenly bursting into tears or feeling tearful along with changes in sleep patterns could also indicate stress.

Besides emotional and behavioral changes, stress also induces physical symptoms such as nausea, headaches, indigestion, sudden palpitations, and even breathlessness. Research has also linked prolonged stress to Irritable Bowel Syndrome as well as cardiovascular disease.

Exercise and de-stress

Regular exercise can have a profound and positive impact on your mental health and counter the negative impact of stress. Besides improving overall physical wellbeing, when you exercise, you release endorphins;the chemicals in the brain that help us feel good and uplift our mood. Regular physical activity improves our blood circulation, helps us feel energetic, improves our sleep and makes us feel better about ourselves. Moreover every bit of physical activity, even if it’s only for 15-20 minutes a day, increases our ability to fight the debilitating effects of stress. Some of the exercises that one can do to relieve stress are:

• Yoga - this form of gentle exercise helps lower our heart rate and our blood pressure, increases one’s body’s flexibility and makes us mindful of our breathing. It is great for people of any age.
• Aerobic exercises –any form of high intensity workouts like dancing, spinning, running or kick boxing,increases our heart rate, burns calories, maintains a high metabolic rate and helps build muscle while strengthening our bones and improving our mental health.
• Pilates – this form of exercise is designed to build strength, flexibility and endurance and is a form of anaerobicexercise, which tones our body and helps to reduce stress.
• Team sports- what better way to enjoy your physical activity than play team sports such as football, cricket, basketball or even aqua sports. It helps keep you active, fit and improves your relationships, while also helping you de-stress.

Stress today is an undeniable fact of life. But we can counter the harmful effects of stress by being mindful of how it can and does affect us, physically and mentally, and take necessary steps to keep ourselves stress-free and healthy. If you find that you or someone close to you is suffering from anxiety, depression or other stress-related issues, please take an appointment with a doctor. Don’t let stress win over you. Exercise your willpower and negate its effects, because you can.