Switch off the smartphones, to save children from tech addiction

Robert Badal says social media and smartphone technology are inherently addictive, and e-learning might do more harm than good. Parents and teachers need to lead by example in the fight against device overuse

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There has never been anything to match the intimate, innately addictive nature of this new technology – or anything with such profound effects that was embraced so recklessly on such a mass scale. Illustration: Craig Stephens

Published: 4:32pm, 24 Jan 2018Updated: 7:56pm, 24 Jan 2018

January 2: the World Health Organisation listed “gaming disorder” as a mental health condition under its International Classification of Diseases.

January 6: the California State Teacher’s Retirement System wrote to Apple demanding restrictions to children’s smartphone access and support for research, citing a range of serious mental health issues connected to smartphone use supported by clinical studies.

Soon after, former Apple executive Tony Fadell, “the father of the iPod”, slammed internet and social media companies for creating widespread addiction that Steve Jobs would have opposed.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Dr Sherry Turkle called this rising storm “a bottom-up backlash”. She wrote a prophetic book in 2011 Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, warning of the psychological and societal damage that is omnipresent now.

The darker side of computer gaming is beginning to emerge in Hong Kong’s schools

Children use smartphones at a cinema in Beijing. The technology’s inbuilt addictiveness makes it hard for children to choose other activities such as reading. Photo: AP

Founders of tech companies restrict their children’s access because they know how effective that built-in addictiveness is

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