The fast career of smartphones has pulled round many specialists who pay attention not only to the benefits, but also to the risks associated with them. The term “phonoholism” or addiction to the phone, quickly gained popularity. However, it is worth knowing what the more subtle symptoms of the incorrect relationship with the phone are – and how to respond to them.
Friendship or toxic relationship?
It is difficult today to expect a child to only use analog toys. In the end, he observes parents who are replying to emails with their smartphone, making appointments to the doctor and paying bills. Vibrating the phone reminds you to drink a glass of water or make birthday wishes. In many cases, a smartphone is a convenient and quick way to manage our reality – an important task for a parent is to teach their children how to use their phone wisely. What if you use it in real needs? Such as:
• a reminder for the test at school,
• instant messaging contacts with friends,
• maybe some photo editing application for a small fan of graphics and photos,
• learning languages, learning about new cultures.
They will be useful for sure. It is important, however, that a young smartphone user, bewitched by his abilities, does not allow his / her addiction to be completely dependent on a flat screen. It is worth talking to your child if the phone will actually make it easier for him to learn or to pursue his passion or to fill time with no benefits.
How many hours means addiction?
The time the child spends with the phone in front of his eyes is not always reliable information on whether his relationship with the smartphone is within the normal range or whether he should pay attention to the parent. It will not be a bad thing either, if the daughter once happens to sink in the blue screen for the whole afternoon, watching photos of the rarest Asian toads. When an eleven-year-old, tired after a very hard day, throws himself on the bed and slides his finger across the screen, we can assume that he really has no strength at all for anything else. However, if it begins to become his everyday life, and a few hours a day with a smartphone is a new tradition, it will be useful to talk about why the phone has become so important.
Phone-therapist…
If the child regularly begins to spend more time sunk in the blue screen, his smartphone can barely cope with the number of applications downloaded, and other areas of life (learning, friends, home duties) begin to go down into the background, it is worth to intervene. It may be helpful to reach the cause of the change in behavior. Some children spend a lot of time with the phone because they cannot organize their own time – instead of planning activities, they count the next steps of the favorite game. Those little ones who started using the phone early may be used to flickering effects on the screen and to quickly change the composition, which is why fewer stimulating ways to spend time may seem boring to them.
… and Parent-Lifeguard
Cutting off the access to the network or setting an hour a day to use the phone will not solve the problem – because the phone is often only a way to express the problem, but it is not in itself. It is worth teaching a child to actively solve problems or creative organization of time, and technology should be treated as facilitating the implementation of needs. Thanks to this, the child will be able to enjoy its benefits without risking that the digital world will keep it too deep.