Keep Your Kids Safe
Cellphone addiction
Is your child constantly on their phone? Do they watch TV whilst looking at their phone? Do they struggle to go to sleep after using their phone? Do they carry their phone into bed? Do you notice in improvements in their mood if a positive message comes in, or a decrease in their mood if they get no message at all? Do they use their phone all the time even during social interaction? Are you worried that your child has cellphone addiction?
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What is cellphone addiction?
Experts are not sure if cellphones are "addictive" like drugs or alcohol. They do agree that cellphones can create compulsive behaviors that can have a negative affect on a person's life.
Wikipedia defines an addiction as a state characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli despite adverse consequences. According to the World Health Organisation cellphone addiction is now classified as a dependence syndrome.
Some common signs of cellphone addiction are :
Experts are not sure if cellphones are "addictive" like drugs or alcohol. They do agree that cellphones can create compulsive behaviors that can have a negative affect on a person's life.
Wikipedia defines an addiction as a state characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli despite adverse consequences. According to the World Health Organisation cellphone addiction is now classified as a dependence syndrome.
Some common signs of cellphone addiction are :
- not sleeping well: A study in Sweden showed that repeated exposure to the cellphone electromagnetic field of 884 MHZ had a negative impact on the components of sleep that are important to the recovery from daily wear and tear. According to the Washington Post a further study found that exposure to the light from a cellphone LED screen before bed-time reduces the amount of Melatonin your brain produces which has a negative impact on sleep. People in the test group exposed to 4 hours of reading on an iPad before bedtime "took longer to fall asleep and spent less time in REM sleep" which is the sleep that restores and heals you
- checking your phone as soon as you wake up
- checking your phone compulsively to see if you have a new message
- not being able to delay responding to a new message on your phone: research by Atchely and Warden showed that people who were offered money to delay replying to a message (the longer they delayed the reply the more they were paid) were not affected by the offer i.e. they would rather reply immediately to a message then get paid not to
- sleeping with your phone (or immediately next to you)
- texting and driving
- feeling anxious or depressed when your cellphone is off or not with you
- Feeling anxious when the WiFi goes off
- Feeling anxious about running out of data
- checking your phone in the middle of a discussion or social interaction with another person - it has become commonplace for people having lunch or coffee together to stop talking and to spend time on their phones
Behavioral changes to combat cellphone addiction
You might want to consider some methods below, bearing in mind the age of your child. It gets a lot harder to apply these methods the older your child becomes:
You might want to consider some methods below, bearing in mind the age of your child. It gets a lot harder to apply these methods the older your child becomes:
- no cellphone during meals, watching tv, when playing games or other social interactions: your child will initially feel anxious to switch off their phone or leave it in the bedroom but with sticking to this rule they will get used to it
- time out - after a certain time at night the cellphone must be switched off and in some cases given to the parent to keep with them until the next day.
- teach them to place the phone upside down so they are not on the look-out for flashing lights which indicate a new message has arrived (the phone will be with them so they don't get too anxious but it wont distract them)
- turn the phone on silent - the beep of a new message triggers irresistible compulsions in some people
- install an app that limits the amount of time spent on an app, can block certain apps and can set bed-times and no usage times (more suitable for younger kids)
Apps that help combat cellphone addiction
Break free cellphone addiction: This app monitors your usage & gives you warning & useful stat to make you aware of your addiction level. It also provides tools to help reduce addictive behavior.
Screentime Parental Control: Very powerful app for parents to do the following on their child's phone:
- block access to certain apps
- set daily time limit
- set bedtime: allow reading apps but block games
- set lights out time: when all apps are blocked
- reward tasks: if child cleans room they can request for a time extension
- block social network and games app during school hours
- Parents have their own app to control the childs phone e.g. during dinner if your child wont get off their phone use this app to block their phone
Dinner time plus: This app gives parents the ability (via the parent version of the app) to lock & unlock the child's phone during dinner, studying and bedtime. It also provides parents with real-time monitoring, usage reports and the ability to set time limits.