Nowadays, most young people spend a majority of their day on their digital phones. This is due to the absence of parents in their everyday life. While there are undoubtedly many benefits of mobile phones, this essay believes that the usage of smartphones by children will inevitably lead to addiction.
In modern times, skyrocketing costs of living force both parents in a household to work all day. Thus, they seldom have sufficient time to play with their children. As a result, the youth instead switch to their digital devices to seek pleasure and entertainment. Mobile games provide a thrilling experience and allows them to kill time until their parents return home. Using smartphones has become their favourite pastime as shown in data of average screen time on iPhones being roughly 8 hours a day.
Having such a long period of screen time will have tremendous negative effects on children. Without parental regulation, children are not wise enough to control themselves and use phones in moderation. Therefore, the usage of mobile devices will cause them to waste their free time that is better used for revision. Prolonged usage of smartphones will also cause health problems like short-sightedness. A study in Malaysia once found that more than half of primary school students wear glasses. In addition, being glued to their phones may cause children to struggle to concentrate in classes as they keep thinking about their progress in mobile games.
In a nutshell, children spend most of their time each day on mobile phones because it is an easy way to spend time without their parents and over time they might develop an addiction which will cause harmful effects to their health and education.