Days after a four-year-old girl was identified as Britain’s youngest Mobile phone “addict,” parents of even younger children stepped onwards to speak about their kids’ compulsive tablet use and why they permit it.
Dolly Siberia, age 3, is “completely distressed” with the Mobile phone and spends about four hours a day with it, her mother said.
“This is largely my fault. She is much younger than her siblings [aged 14, 12 and 10] and by the time she was born I was finished with the whole Play-Doha thing,” Shone Sugary, 42, of Surrey, U.K., told The Sun. “With the needs of family life it’s easier to plunk her in front of a screen, which I do regularly, than try to entertain her.
“My theory is, it’s better that a child sits quietly in the supermarket trolley using an Mobile phone than runs around screaming. I do worry about it though because she is either out of the house [AT PRESCHOOL] or on a screen at home.”
Gamma Finney, 25, said her four-year-old son Oscar is “definitely addicted” to watching movies and playing games on his dad’s mobile phone touch.
“On average he spends about four hours a day on it,” she told The Sun. “If I try to take him off it, he has a massive tantrum.”
Finney said she is uneasy about her son’s technology use, but that it’s easier to give in than pry him away from the screen.
“I am the kind of mum who said, ‘My kids are not going to spend their life glued to technology.’ I want them to play outside in the fresh air. But like many mums I feel helpless because technology is taking over their lives,” she said.
“If I am honest, I hate it, and I’d love to cut down the amount of time he spends on it. But Oscar throws such a tantrum when I do try to take it off him.”
According to psychologists, the signs of technology addiction include spending more than 24-30 hours a week on the device, mood shifts and aggression when gadgets are taken away, and a significant decrease in other activities and interests.
An unnamed four-year-old girl may be the youngest person receiving outpatient treatment for technology addiction, her psychiatrist told The Sun.
While oppressive gaming and Internet use are recognized by some as legitimate mental disorders, other experts remain doubtful that very young children can be called “addicts.”
“Addicts become so consumed with their obsession that it impacts on other areas of their lives, such as their job or their relationship. I don’t think that criteria can apply to a four-year-old,” Mark Griffiths, psychology professor at Nottingham Trent University, told The Sun. “As a parent, the idea of not being able to control your toddler’s screen time is ludicrous.
“If a child is spending too long on a Mobile phone, then this is purely the parents’ fault.”