Counsellor throws light on children’s screen addiction

Children may mistake online education as ‘green signal’ for increased screen time, say psychiatrist

illustration for TH Illustration: Sreejith R.Kumar

A teenager threatening not to attend online classes unless allowed to play a rather violent online game may sound incredible. But that is exactly what psychiatrist C.J. John had to share of a recent experience. Having come across the problem of screen addiction way too often during her many daily interactions with parents, Mahitha Vipinchandran, a school counsellor in the district under the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), has come up with an awareness video on it.

“Working parents remain anxious as they have no way to monitor whether their children strayed beyond online classes. There have been instances of unwarranted messages targeting children infiltrated into their screen space,” she said. The video will be uploaded on YouTube shortly. Dr. John said children could mistake online education as a ‘green signal’ for increased screen time. Therefore, teachers should clarify that it was just a stopgap arrangement to keep them connected with academics.

“Overloading children with notes and various online projects is not rational either,” he said.

Parental monitoring

Priya Manoj, a teacher, said that live online classes for students in primary classes were held in the evening to ensure monitoring by parents. There was also repeated reminders from the school not to overburden children with too much notes, though it might not be practical in the case of students in higher classes, she said.

Jisha Sajeevan, employed as a domestic help and mother of two daughters aged 10 and 13 years, bought a second-hand television set and a smartphone for their online education. But now she is worried about their screen obsession and simply cannot wait for schools to reopen.

“Earlier, they used to know the phone numbers of only a few friends but now they are in touch with just about everyone and could even be seen chatting with people we hardly know and that is really scary. Before, they hardly had time to spend online as both of them were avid swimmers and were physically active, which is not the case now,” she said.