Harmful Effects of Mobile Phones on Children’s Health

Dhaka
August 01, 2021, 01:31 PM
by Md. Mehedi Hasan

UNB News
Dhaka
Publish- August 01, 2021, 01:31 PM
Md. Mehedi Hasan
Update- August 01, 2021, 02:15 PM

Harmful Effects of Mobile Phones on Children’s Health

Mobile phone's impact on children

It often happens that we give our phones to children to entertain them. They watch cartoons or listen to music and use the phone as a toy. We underestimate children’s capability of learning things and don’t bother ourselves thinking about how mobile phones can affect their growth of mind. We care less about whether a phone is harmful or not for children’s health. But it's really alarming how phones can affect children's bodies and mind negatively.

Effects of Mobile Phone on Children’s Physical Health

Media use like movie and drama watching, video gameplay, doing everything on mobile, etc., can severely damage the physical condition of children. Different streaming services, gaming apps, and social media can be accessed from mobile phones nowadays. Here are some serious damages mobile phones occur to kids’ bodies:

Sleeping Issue

Cell phones with backlights produce light with short-wavelength, known as blue light. LED lights produce blue light, which is proven to diminish or delay a person's natural synthesis of melatonin at night, as well as lessen sensations of drowsiness.

Children are especially vulnerable to sleep difficulties caused by blue-light-emitting electronic gadgets. Many studies had shown a connection between using screen time before bed and increased sleep latency, which is the average time someone takes to fall asleep. Furthermore, children who are accustomed to using these gadgets at night often do not get enough sleep and feel weary the following day.

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Obesity

Spending more time on phones lessens children's interest to go outside and playing with other playmates. They are being habituated to play on phones and losing the innate nature of venturing outside and doing physical work. It has increased the rate of being obese among children.

Food marketing might also influence dietary choices that lead to children's weight gain. Advertising bombards teenagers' eyes via social media and various streaming videos or music material. Seeing the meal on phones with influencing colors and punchline marketing may elicit an instant desire. Advertising may sometimes be deceptive, conveying signals about a food's healthiness that aren't always true.

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Back and Neck Pain

Pain in the back and neck are caused by strain on a person's spine and is often known as cervical discomfort. Such pain has now become the most prevalent kind in a child's body. The use of devices for extended periods of time adds to each of these problems, resulting in greater discomfort. The constant use of devices contributes the most to the cause of this issue.

Poor posture when sitting, sleeping, studying, or using a smartphone for extended periods of time without changing their position and sitting incorrectly causes neck and back discomfort from a young age. Cervical issues at such a young age are very dangerous since they tend to last a lifetime, impacting the child's gesture for the rest of his or her life if not addressed promptly.

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Children are using Cell Phones

Effects of Mobile Phone on Children’s Mental Health

This present generation is growing in a time when all the information of the world can be reached from a device at their hands. They can connect to whomever they want via different social networks. There are apps that can track down where a friend is located. Some apps tell what those friends are doing, playing, and wearing. Loads of games are just one tap away from being installed on their phones. In a sentence, the scope of entertainment has become boundless. But these are also occurring some side-effects in children’s minds. Such as

Communication Discomfort

Social scientists have termed the way children are learning to communicate through their phones as deindividuated communication. This way, children don't have to communicate being in front of anybody. They use texting and social media to communicate, being totally anonymous or faceless. It’s easier to hurt people or to be mean when you are not in front of someone.

Kids are sharing things with each other and behaving in a way that a normal person will never think of doing in the presence of others. They are learning to be more aggressive and practicing extreme violence from their childhood.

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Addiction

From the design to the way of operating different options, phones are the most addicting of all inventions. Studies have revealed that about 50% of teens are so much attached to their cell phones that they can't function a single day without them. It can damage or avert brains development in a way that kids have to suffer throughout their lives.

Social Reluctance

Adolescence is the most critical period for social skill development. They learn how to offer and accept friendships, how to settle a disagreement, and what to do and what not in social etiquette through engaging with their peers. However, when teenagers spend less time face-to-face with their peers, they get fewer chances to develop such social skills. They grow more self-conscious in social situations, preferring to connect through email or emoji rather than in person. Despite their internet ties, they live fake, lonely life.

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Depression

Several studies have been conducted worldwide on this factor. Because depression is the most lethal killer among all psychological diseases. In a recent study, it's been found that teens spending more time doing different non-screen activities are happier than the others. Kids spending more time on their phones are likely to be less happy, lonely, and suffering from depression and anxiety.

Kids don't spend time with each other nowadays. Hence, the kid's homicidal case has degraded, but the suicide rate has increased. Girl kids are more vulnerable to depression than boys. Children who suffer from anxiety can't get snap out of it. The symptoms continue to appear even in their adulthood.

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Conclusion

Children are more vulnerable to the process of their information intake. When they can absorb knowledge and entertainment that much easier, they become unable to study as it takes much effort to learn something by books and papers. So, smartphones, if not used reasonably, will destroy the children's future by making them weak physically and mentally.