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Parental smartphone addiction linked to children’s behavioural issues: Indian study

12 Sep 2021

  • Researchers recommended limiting use when with children, media awareness, medical history taking, counselling
BY Ruwan Laknath Jayakody Smartphone addiction in parents is significantly associated with behavioural problems in their children, an Indian study has found. This finding was made by M. Mitra and A. Banerjee in an original article on the “Association between parental smartphone addiction and child behavioural problems” which was published in the Sri Lanka Journal of Child Health’s 50th Volume’s Second Issue on 5 June 2021. Even though initially, the internet was the technological addiction that also had an association with children’s psychological health problems, studies (W. Lane and C. Manner’s “The impact of personality traits on smartphone ownership and use” and Y.H. Lin, Y.C. Lin, Y.H. Lee, P.H. Lin, S.H. Lin, L.R. Chang, H.W. Tseng, L.Y. Yen, C.C.H. Yang, and T.B.J. Kuo’s “Time distortion associated with smartphone addiction: Identifying smartphone addiction via a mobile application/app”) have now added smartphone use as having addiction potential. As Mitra and Banerjee explain, smartphones provide users with a torrent, or near endless supply, of both positive and negative social stimuli, with the positive social stimuli resulting in the release of dopamine (a neurotransmitter which plays a role in how pleasure is felt and processed) which is probably responsible, according to them, for the addiction forming aspect of the matter. Such responses are akin to drug (cocaine) addiction (per T. Haynes “Dopamine, Smartphones and you: A battle for your time”). In this regard, N. Narayanan’s “Internet de-addiction centres in Delhi. Bangalore battles India’s newest lifestyle disease” and D.N. Jha’s “Delhi gets its first Internet de-addiction centre” argue that de-addiction centres for smartphones and internet use will soon be commonplace. In particular, the overuse of smartphones has been found to lead to feelings of addiction and dependency (J. Billieux, M.V.D. Linden, and L. Rochat’s “The role of impulsivity in the actual and problematic use of the mobile phone” and M. Choliz’s “Mobile phone addiction: A point of issue”), the dangerous use of smartphones whilst driving (A. Bianchi and J.G. Phillips’s “Psychological predictors of problematic mobile phone use” and M.P. White, J.R. Eiser, and P.R. Harris’s “Risk perceptions of mobile phone use while driving”), and the use of such in prohibited places like libraries and classrooms (R.C. Nickerson, H. Isaac, and B.A. Mak’s “Multi-national study of attitudes about mobile phone use in social settings”). Also, the overuse of mobile phones is associated with increased psycho-pathological symptoms such as depression and anxiety (J.D. Elhai, J.C. Levine, R.D. Dvorak, and B.J. Hall’s “Non-social features of smartphone use are most related to depression, anxiety, and problematic smartphone use”), and is known to interfere with relationships (A.K. Przybylski and N. Weinstein’s “Can you connect with me now? How the presence of mobile communication technology influences face-to-face conversation quality”). Moreover, addiction to cell/mobile phones is inversely related to mental health and healthy habits (J.D.S. Gutierrez, F.R.D. Fonseca, and G. Rubio’s “Cell phone addiction: A review”). With regard to the ill effects and negative impacts that parental smartphone addiction has on the wellbeing of children, it has been found that children may feel snubbed by these electronic devices and in turn start acting out (M. Salamon’s “Parents’ smartphone use can affect kids’ behaviour”) and parents who are so addicted to such will experience more difficulty in regulating the use of such devices by their children (T. Haelle’s “Parents’ smartphone addiction linked to children’s overuse of the devices”). Hence, Mitra and Banerjee carried out a prospective study from March 2019 to March 2020, with all two to 12-year-old children attending the paediatric outpatient department (both new and follow up cases but excluding those with pre-existing behavioural problems such as those already attending the development clinic and special education clinic in the hospital) in a tertiary hospital as the study sample population. The Centre for Internet and Technology Addiction’s “Smartphone compulsion test” was self-administered by parents to find out about smartphone usage-related practices where a score of eight or more was considered as denoting an adult who is addicted to smartphones. The parents were also requested to fill in the Paediatric Symptom Checklist-17 (PSC-17), which contains 17 items to be rated as “never (zero value)”, “sometimes (value one)”, or “often (value two)”, to learn about the behavioural problems of their children. The responses of PSC-17 are further subdivided into externalising problems (problematic behaviours that are directed towards the external environment including physical aggression, the disobeying of rules, cheating, stealing, and the destruction of property), internalising problems (negative behaviours that are focused inward including fearfulness, social withdrawal, and somatic [relating to the body as opposed to the mind] complaints), and attention-related problems. A child with a score of five and above is considered as facing an internalisation problem, a score of seven or more indicating both attention-related and externalisation problems, and an overall PSC-17 score of 15 or more deemed symptomatic of the presence of significant behavioural or emotional problems. There were a total of 500 parents and 138 (27.6%) of them were found to be addicted to their smartphones (a figure that is over three times higher than the same [8.1%] in the case of Korean adults, per H. Kim’s “Exercise rehabilitation for smartphone addiction”), while 14% of the children were found to have behavioural problems. Among the parents who were addicted to their smartphones, 30 (21.7%) reported internalisation problems faced by their children, while in the case of parents who were not similarly addicted, the figure for the same was approximately 7%. Parents who were thus addicted had an approximately 22% risk of their children having internalisation problems, whereas the risk for the same in non-addicted parents was around 7%, with the relative risk coming to 3.02. Addicted parents were 3.59 times more likely to have their children have internalisation problems, than in the case of non-addicted parents. Therefore, it was found that smartphone addiction in parents was significantly associated with their children facing internalisation problems. However, no significant association was seen with attention problems; but the relative risk was more than one. An association was also observed with regard to externalisation, with the relative risk being 3.54. Addicted parents thus have a risk as high as 35% of their children having overall behavioural problems, with a relative risk of 5.48 and a high odds ratio of 7.86. In short, addicted parents when compared to non-addicted parents were about eight times more likely to have their children have overall behavioural problems. In conclusion, a strong statistical association was observed between smartphone addiction among parents and overall problems in their children, specifically significant and strong association with overall behavioural problems, internalisation, and externalisation in children. Mitra and Banerjee described this situation as “frightening”. Discussing the results, Mitra and Banerjee observed that the cheaper cost of smartphones and data plans in India, which has over 100 million smartphone users (“Smartphone users worldwide 2016-2021”) makes it easier to access smartphones together with the lack of awareness about the ill effects of smartphones explain the higher levels of addiction. In “A descriptive study of behavioural problems in school going children”, which considered older children between the ages of six and 18 years, A.K. Gupta, M. Mongia, and A.K. Garg found that 22.7% had behavioural problems. Smartphone addiction causes parents to be distracted even in the presence of their children (“Patterns of mobile device use by caregivers and children during meals in fast food restaurants” by J.S. Radesky, C.J. Kistin, B. Zuckerman, K. Nitzberg, J. Gross, M. Kaplan-Sanoff, M. Augustyn, and M. Silverstein). The addiction to smartphones prevents parents from providing meaningful emotional support to their children, a scenario which in turn causes the children to throw tantrums or sulk. This situation gets further aggravated as the resultant stress for the parents leads to them withdrawing more into the use of this technology. To remedy this state of affairs, Mitra and Banerjee made several recommendations. These included parents giving uninterrupted attention to their children and limiting the use of smartphones in the presence of their children, and for the mass media to spread awareness regarding this developing problem. For clinicians and physicians, the duo recommended that if they suspect smartphone addiction when taking down the history of children presenting with behavioural problems, they should make the inquiry of parental smartphone use part of such regular history taking, and thereafter provide counselling similar to the same done for substance abuse by highlighting the repercussions to both the parents and to the children.  

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