How much technology is too much technology? Educationists and experts say that it is when a kindergarten or primary school student starts asking their teachers to give them mobile phones to play.
Many schools across the city have observed that in the two years since the pandemic, technological dependency or preference among children have increased drastically. A pre-school staffer recently noted on social media that students were often playing with their pencil kits or dusters in classrooms pretending that they were their phones.
While most schools have a strict, no phone/gadget policy at school, they said that not much could be done when the parents themselves start using phones as ways to pacify their children. “There have been a few cases where younger children have asked for a particular gadget. We discourage the use of any kind of gadgets in schools. Even the LED panels in classrooms are completely operated by the teachers,” said Sunil Fernandes S. J., principal, St. Joseph’s Boys High School.
“At home, when the children throw tantrums or are cranky, we have observed that some parents give them their phones as it will either keep them occupied or distract them. We give them regular instructions to reduce this. At the school, we believe in creating healthy alternatives to handle the children, maybe by engaging them in activities of solving a puzzle or playing word building or taking a walk inside the school,” he added.
The increased preference of children to use technology has been identified as a concern even at the SHUT clinic at NIMHANS, one of the premier technology de-addiction and counselling clinics in the country.
“When they do not have any structured activities, there is a preference among children to spend time with technology. Many factors like urban families and single-child families contribute to the use and preference of technology among children. We have seen young parents of children who are five to six years old come to our clinic and seek advice on how to reduce tech use,” said Manoj Sharma, professor of clinical psychology and coordinator of the SHUT clinic.
He further said, “The kind of queries we are getting on our helpline number and even when we go to schools or parent talks, where they want to know how to manage tech usage among children clearly indicates that this an emerging concern.”
While there were reports of excessive smartphone and social media among adolescents and high school students before, schools have noticed that the levels of these have gone up in the recent past.
“The older students use a lot of Instagram. In many cases, even their parents do not know that they have these accounts. They sometimes bring their phones to schools and use them in the washrooms without our knowledge. While we ask for Whatsapp numbers to add their parents in the groups, they instead give their own numbers now,” noted Saraswathi, principal at Vasavi Vidyanikethan. While acknowledging that this has definitely had an impact on the academic abilities of the children, she said that parents should take more responsibility to tackle these problems.
Addressing this issue, Dr. Sharma said, “I have observed that young adolescents have good knowledge of healthy and unhealthy patterns of usage, but they lack strategies or skills to have efficient use of technology. It contributes to a casual attitude towards screen use.”
