Risks for child growth from gadgets

Negative effects of gadget use

Despite all the advantages of using gadgets, we should not exclude the fact that excessive use can be equated with addiction. And the consequences can be both for mental, as well as physical and emotional health. Let's take a look at some of the most common issues kids face.

Attention deficiency. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a mental disorder. This causes problems such as difficulty concentrating, over-activity, or difficulty controlling behavior. As a result, this leads to restlessness, an inability to concentrate, and the ease of being distracted. This behavior change can cause issues at school or at home.

Issues with learning. Excessive use of gadgets means that children's time for communication with parents and learning is limited. This leads to disruption of the normal development of communication and interaction skills. In addition, gadget use is associated with delayed cognitive development and learning disabilities. Remember, kids need parents or guardian parent, not gadgets.

Disquiet. Disquiet, nervousness, shyness, and fear are developed due to hours of computer games. Children with these symptoms avoid people, places, and activities. It is also not excluded from the manifestation of aggression and tension due to the temporary absence of gadgets.

Children's depression. This is a fairly common and serious disease, which does not have the best effect on the child's behavior. Excessive gadget use causes depression and mental health problems.

Deterioration of character. This is one of the most important issues. As children use their gadgets, they begin to view adult content more often. This is bad for character development. Use a child filter to prevent your child from watching prohibited content and set web control.

Heightened anxiety. The absence of a gadget in the hands of the child leads to nervousness and anxiety. This may indicate the dependence of the child. Whether this is actually so can be understood in several ways.

Limit access to certain features by turning on kids mode on your device. This will help avoid the above issues.

Is your child addicted to gadgets?

It's easy to understand! To get started, ask your child to put the gadget down and see how they react. If the child's mood deteriorated, he began to cry and hysteria, and even act aggressively, this indicates a problem. This often happens with children and the reason is very simple. The reason is the mood hormones dopamine and serotonin. Serotonin is responsible for the background good mood, while dopamine is responsible for the explosion of emotions. If a child experiences an outburst of emotion while using the phone, then this indicates an addiction. Now all the positive emotions come from gadgets. This suggests that the center of pleasure has been spoiled and the child cannot live without a gadget.

Addiction appears for various reasons:

• hyper-custody;
• suppression of the child's emotions by parents;
• child's infantilism;
• addiction of parents to gadgets.

How to get rid of addiction?

It is difficult to do this, but sometimes you have to take drastic measures. For example, limit screen time helps, but it can work the other way around. If the situation is more serious than it seems, then sometimes the help of neurologists and psychotherapists is indispensable.

Many parents mistakenly believe that the child should be immediately deprived of all gadgets when there is an addiction. But sometimes this is not the right solution to the problem, because it will be difficult for the child to find himself again face to face with his problem. It is better to find a safe substitute, something that the child can enjoy. It is also worth a try to establish child-parent communication without extraneous morals, and the gadget will turn into an assistant in studies. There are many interesting educational applications that will help in the study of different subjects.

Precautionary measures

Before gadget addiction turns into addiction, parents can take the following precautions:

• Limit of time kids spends on their phones and other gadgets by setting an app time limit. Consider setting clear time limits so there is no debate about when to stop. This will help the child lock setting.
• Monitor the search content of children on the phone using the monitoring app secure family.
• Increase your time of physical activity outdoors. On average, kids are encouraged to spend 3 hours outdoors.
• Give children 5-minute eye breaks every 30 to 40 minutes of using the devices.
• Make sure your child gets enough sleep during the night.
• Limit your device use an hour before bed – set time control.
• Encourage face-to-face interaction that helps children develop their social skills and ability to communicate
• Have a fruitful verbal conversation with your child about the downsides of overusing smartphones.
• Set up kid guard which protects the child from forbidden content.

Set the time without gadgets: at the table, before going to bed, in transport, in nature

This is general advice that will benefit the entire family. First of all, this is important because children should not feel that they have to compete with devices for the attention of their parents. So set clear hours of work if you work from home, and the rest of the time, break away from gadgets if the child needs something. Forbid smartphones, tablets, and laptops for an hour after returning from work and spending this time with your family.

You need your own family plan for using gadgets, not standards imposed by scientists. A child with an immature nervous system and emotionally unstable should spend less time with gadgets early in life. Protect your child from uncontrolled interaction with the gadget.