Band 6+: Some children spend hours every day on their smartphones. Why is this the case? Do you think this is a positive or a negative development? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Some children spend hours daily on their smartphones, raising concerns on whether this is a beneficial or negative development. This paper will explain the trend, highlighting the malevolent implications of this situation.

The frequent use of smartphones is stemmed from the decreasing in-person interaction from the children’s parents and friends, as most people turn to their a smartphone for entertainment. Thus, kids would also use this device. While phones were intended to assist with affordable and real-time communication and entertainment, it has inadvertently led to its excessive usage due to these appeals. These include addiction to social media and its meaningless contents for a constantly quick boost of dopamine to make up for the loss of personal interaction.

This overt usage leads to various consequences on child’s development. First, shorten attention span is found among kids with more than three hours of daily screentime. This phenomenon has negatively affected their cognitive development, as they cannot retain and process a vast amount information within a short time frame. Plus, their chosen content are often meaningless, especially with the lack of parental control, making their intelligence growth ineffective.

Second, the constant content consumption via smartphones leads to a heightened emotional outburst due to the lack of interpersonal communication. A 2019 Northwestern University report found most American kids under six with a tremendous screentime were unable to form a complete thought process, leading to their extended frustration. If no widespread recognition and actions combat these impacts, a whole generation and their descendants will continue such detrimental traits, leading to a mass deduction in emotional and informational intelligence.

In conclusion, while smartphones were invented with beneficial intentions, its current setbacks on the young kids due to the excessive usage is undeniable. The negative implications of this trend, including the deduction in emotional control and intelligence, will continue if no collective measures are implemented to cater to the children’s needs in in-person interactions.