Using smartphone is a very common nowadays. Availability of internet, low-cost smartphones and the growing need of doing tasks in online boost the use of smartphone. Though, children might need smart phones for academic purposes or entertainment but the time they spent on this is now alarming. From my perception, it’s a negative development.
Due to population growth and urbanization, open space and land has been saturated through out the time. There are very little amount of place remains in urban areas for games and recreation. This issue attracts an alternative solution which are video games or social medias for leisure time. Even the social media sites, video games and other recreational apps are programmed as such to attract people. Sometimes adult can not handle this addiction maturely let alone children.
As using smartphone is becoming addiction, the negative impacts are detrimental. First of all, it wastes valuable time. It exerts dopamine release which increase the addiction. Then, it affects their brain and overall performances in academic results. Children prefer to play video games rather than going outside. So, their networking skills and social interaction gets hampered. Even, their bad situation handling techniques remain poor. Though there are many positive uses of smartphones but the bad impacts are exploiting those positive advantages.
A technical course or regular seminar for how to use smart phones for children will be effective to minimize the negative impacts. A balanced situation must be created by mass awareness for articulating the use of smartphones. Otherwise, the consequences will be catastrophic.