TDS Desk:

Joharin is the two-year old daughter of Reza and Khadija. She just loves to watch cartoons on smartphone. Whenever the baby cries, her parents immediately handover their smartphone to her and it works like magic. Joharin stops crying as soon as she gets the smartphone.

It is often seen that the girl does not want to eat, mother Khadija tries to feed her quickly, keeping the baby busy with the smartphone.

At the end, the situation is such that eating, sleeping, playing — she wants a smartphone for everything. Her mother suddenly discovered one afternoon that Joharin’s right eye was looking unusual. She rushed to the doctor with her tiny tot.

After completing all procedures, the doctor said that the cornea of Joharin’s right eye had moved due to constant staring at the smartphone for a long time. As a result, she was looking cross-eyed.

In recent research, it was seen that on an average a child in Bangladesh uses a smartphone for around three hours a day. A significant number of children in the country use smartphones for even five hours a day on an average.

The research found that the excessive use of smartphones by the parents encourages their children to get addicted to the devices.

According to paediatricians and mental health experts, children easily get addicted to smartphones through the excessive use of the device, and it is leaving a huge negative impact on the child’s early social and emotional development, hampering the development of their multifaceted skills.

According to the latest data of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), the number of mobile phone users in the country is 183.8 million. Among them, currently the number of internet users is 13 crore 19 lakh, which is 32 per cent of the total population.

Meanwhile, 11 crore 97 lakh people use the internet on their mobile phone, which is 90.79 per cent of the total internet users. Also, the number of smartphone users is 53 million.

According to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) statistics, as of 2022, the total number of children aged five to 17 years in the country is 3.99 million. Among them, 41 per cent above the age of five use the Internet.

Recently, a group of researchers from Jahangirnagar University studied the effect of smartphone use on children. It shows that in Bangladesh, parents who use smartphones for three hours or more every day, the risk of their children becoming addicted to the phones is about 90 times higher than that of children who do not use the devices. Moreover, 92 per cent of children use a parent’s smartphone and eight per cent of children have their own.

In this research, it is also seen that whenever the child is crying, does not want to eat or whenever the parents want to finish their own work, they give smartphones to their child to keep him/her busy. The child is calmed down by showing cartoons on the phones.

About the negative effects of smartphone use on children, one of the members of the research team Professor Dr Mohammad Nazmul Haque said, “Smartphone addiction has become a big problem nowadays. Smartphone-addicted children are 500 times more likely to develop mental health problems and 230 times more likely to have physical health problems than non-phone-addicted children.

“It has a variety of detrimental effects on the physical and mental health and cognitive development of pre-school children. However, 50 per cent of mothers believe that their children can learn a lot using smartphones.” he said.

Psychologists identify this attraction of children and teenagers towards mobile phones and the internet as internet addiction or mobile phone addiction.

In this context, paediatrician and president of Bangladesh Children’s Physicians Association Professor Dr Manjur Hossain said: “Dopamine neurotransmitter is released from brain cells while watching TV, mobile games or any kind of virtual entertainment. This dopamine transmits a good feeling to our mind. As a result, we become addicted very easily.”

Meanwhile, Associate Professor of Holy Family Red Crescent Medical College, Dr Farzana Robin identifies internet addiction as not a disease but a major problem responsible for many diseases.

Expert doctors are citing smartphone addiction as dangerous as drug addiction.

According to a study by Public Health of England, if young children keep their eyes on mobile phones, television, video games or computers for a long time, they may suffer from inferiority complex, lose mental balance including depression and become addicted to pornography.

During this time, there is a risk of various complications including irritability, headache, watery eyes, loss of appetite, obesity, behavioural changes and loss of vision. In addition, there is a direct relationship between video game addiction and autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit disorder, depression and severe depression in children and adolescents.

According to mental health experts, excessive internet addiction causes attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children, disrupts language development and increases the risk of damage to various parts of the eye, including the cornea-retina, and the highly harmful radiation from screens disrupts their brain development.

Renowned mental health expert of the country and National Health Institute Prof Meghla Sarkar said many times parents’ hand over a harmful thing like a mobile phone to the child to control his stubbornness or to reduce his mischief or to feed him.

In order to reduce a temporary problem, they are getting involved in a big problem as mobile has a kind of addictive element. So naturally, when a child gets such an attractive and stimulating phone in his/her hands, their tendency to become addicted to it increases compared to adults. Therefore, handing over a mobile phone to a child at an early age means compromising with the elements of nature and environment from which his mental development and social skills were supposed to be formed.

Therefore, in order to ensure the mental health protection of a mobile addicted child, the parents must first be aware that its excessive use is hindering the development of the child’s mental health.

In this case, first of all, as parents, they should stop handing mobile phones to the child for the purpose of playing or feeding them, try to create interest in him for socialising with outside children and above all to ensure that children participate in sports and creative social activities from an early age.

Many people think that children and adolescents cannot have mental illness. However, scientific studies show that children are at risk of developing mental problems right from birth.

Generally, children and teenagers of our country are suffering from various mental problems or diseases. Notable among these are hyperactivity, behavioural problems, bedwetting disorders, school retention/school phobias, restlessness or tension disorders, anorexia and food aversion disorders, and child development problems: autism spectrum disorders.

Therefore, Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman ensured all the rights of children in the constitution to protect the future of the country. Under the leadership of the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, her government is conducting child nutrition-health-education programs with the aim of ensuring the overall development and empowerment of children in the implementation of the Vision 2021.

In line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Seventh Five Year Plan has set targets for child health, education, nutrition, water and sanitation.

Also, through the establishment of the ‘National Council for Women and Children Development’ (NCWCD), policy-making guidance is being given on the safety and security of women and children. Source: BSS