We are becoming more and more dependent on the constantly growing communication technology around us. Smartphones have become a necessity and we are seeing a constant proliferation of parents who are allowing the use of smartphones for their young children. Plenty of research has been performed on the negative impacts your child can have from using smartphones at such an early stage.
Here are a few key reasons smartphones could be considered a cancer for children and why you should be giving more attention to how your children spend their days.
The body part that is the most engaged when your children are using smartphones is their eyes. The major portion of media they consume is visual in nature and demands constant attention from your children. This is also true for any other similar device like computers and TVs. The term “computer vision syndrome” has been used thoroughly over the years and scientists are associating it with the use of smartphones as well. The constant strain that your children’s eyes feel from using smartphones for long periods can also lead to serious eye damage.
Right from the time a baby is born (and even a little before that), the brain is constantly developing, absorbing information, and increasing its size. To develop a healthy brain that can perform all its functions effectively, you need to provide your children with all kinds of stimuli. However, if they are exposed to constant cellphone use, you can imagine how undermined that critical step becomes. With no physical movement involved and constantly staring at a screen, children can develop all sorts of nervous disorders and have a hampered critical thinking ability.
One of the biggest problems that comes with smartphone use is a child’s lack of physical movement. Most content that children consume on smartphones these days promotes inactivity and laziness and also enhances it automatically as children spend hours without moving their body for any kind of physical requirement. This state of stagnancy means the body is not burning enough calories to stay healthy. Given the fact that bad snacking habits are also associated with the prolonged use of smartphones, we can see countless cases of obesity everywhere. This can lead to some severe problems including paralysis, diabetes, anyone heart attack.
One thing that has been thoroughly researched over the years is the association of smartphone use with the sleeping patterns of children. It has been found that children who have constant access to smartphones or even other similar devices often tend to stay up late and develop bad sleeping habits. This can lead to long-term problems like difficulty sleeping and even insomnia. As a result, the child’s brain development can also be affected significantly.
This is one of the most concerning problems that can arise from constant smartphone use in children. The type of content children consume has a serious impact on their behavior patterns and as it happens, most of the content you can find online these days is aggressive or violent in nature. The feeling of detachment from reality due to the content that any child watches also makes them aggressive and irritable. United States government has declared “media violence” as a type of Public Health Risk for its negative impact on children’s behaviors.
Health care officials are referring to uncontrolled smartphone use in children as a form of addiction and there is a good reason behind that. We are constantly seeing more and more cases of children developing what can only be described as an addiction to smartphones and technology in general. In fact, this phenomenon has become so widespread that many studies show close to 10% of all children being addicted to smartphone use. This can lead to problems that are very similar in nature to what some real drug addictions can do.
Radiation waves being emitted from cellphones are as real a problem as any. Many scientists also deem it unhealthy for adults, so you can only imagine the damage it must be doing to children. In fact, it was labeled as a 2B radiation risk which means it could be a possible carcinogen that we are holding in our hands. In 2013 the WHO revised this classification and raised it to 2A which means it is “probably a carcinogen,” meaning the threat of damage is certainly real. Radiation exposure can lead to actual cancer, which means it is an extremely bad idea to have children using it for long hours.
This is a point that has been debated for years now and there is overwhelming evidence suggesting that it is indeed a problem. Not being exposed to social situations and staying closed off within their own minds makes children incapable of dealing with social situations effectively. It can also lead to bad relationships between children and parents and even make the child develop secrets. Open communication is an essential part of their development. While you could even extract their SMS usage, for example, and print SMS from Android using SMS EasyReader&Printer, the importance of being open about everything is not replaceable.
What Other Health Problems Can Occur in Children?
While many angles are being studied regarding the negative health impacts of smartphone use in children, most evidence points towards two specific problems that are digital dementia and attention deficit disorder. Both these problems can lead to serious life problems and affect the child’s development as well. Apart from that, other mental health issues have also been observed including anxiety, autism, depression, bad behavior, depression, and even bipolar disorder. The fact that one out of six children in Canada is facing some form of mental illness speaks a lot about the impact that the proliferation of smartphones has created.
The factors defined here show a grim picture of what you can expect after exposing children to smartphones. While it may seem extremely worrying, they are nonetheless as real as any other problem you can imagine. Not giving your children a priority and not having them grow in a productive environment can lead to problems that we cannot reverse in many cases. Supervised and limited use of such gadgets along with a healthy dose of other physical and social activities is essential for proper child development.