By Salil Gewali
“If Australia can ban mobile phone use among children, why can’t India?” This has become quite a fervent question on the lips of countless parents these days. Those who truly understand how the human mind works, especially amid constant sensory surges triggered by “digital stimuli”, are now steeped in regret. They genuinely do not wish their children to be affected by harmful virtual influencers. There is an overwhelming flood of YouTube influencers with millions of followers, who stoop too low to make quick money. In fact, the lure of monetisation has auctioned off their conscience to whoever pays most.
What is painfully obvious is that the wrong kind of celebrity influence holds sway in the virtual world. The concern is that our children and youth are too drawn to copy them. This fact is reflected strongly in the kinds of reels they post with any remorse to social media platforms. To attract more eyeballs or to make their posts go viral, they adopt tactics that are often unmentionable. Spicing content with vulgarity has become their common practice. They are so lost in the habit that they practically fail to distinguish between right and wrong.
Frankly speaking, how do we have the right to blame our children now? Why did we allow them to use smartphones without restriction in the first place? Was it not the responsibility of parents to be watchful so that the children do not fall into bad habits? Moreover, why did we fail to realise that an unchecked habit, like an untamed pet, would bite back?
No wonder that when we, as parents, try to speak gently about their indulgences, the children turn their anger on us. Why does this happen? Just look at the widening distance between children and parents these days. Notice their growing preference for isolation. They shut themselves in their rooms and stay up with their handsets until the early hours of the morning. Has it not become dangerous, not just for them, but for the family as a whole? It is, in fact, a threat to society at large.
One concerned teacher laments that a child who watches cartoons at an early age can be drawn into “addictive games” or filthy content as soon as they turn ten or eleven. Once they get a taste of such content, it becomes almost impossible for parents to put the brakes on mobile use because the child is already enslaved by the device. If a parent somehow tries to stop them, the reaction can be shockingly extreme. Some may even think of committing suicide.
It is indeed very difficult to erase from our memory a tragic incident involving a young girl from Mawryngkneng a few months ago. She took her own life after her parents did not allow her to use a mobile phone. The incident sent a chill down the spines of the people of Meghalaya. Should we not learn from this tragedy? What’s more, in Tripura, a class nine student had killed his mother, younger sister, grandfather, and a neighbour after his mother denied him her smartphone. Does it not clearly show that an “intense desire” for something can drive even a child to commit such a horrendous crime? What if this boy were not obsessed with mobile use? He would not at all be driven to this terrifying madness.
I do not wish to brush aside the horrifying incident in Nongrah. A 13-year-old boy deliberately pushed a 4-year-old girl into a pond and killed her. Was this tragic act not linked to the boy’s exposure to obscene content on a smartphone? Sadly, no one has raised a voice in support of banning such content to safeguard our younger generation. Is this not the grim reality of modern society? Nevertheless, I think we, too, partly bear responsibility for drowning society in grief.
Thankfully, at least people in Australia have awakened. They have consistently raised their voices against the menace of “digital pollution”. As a result, a serious study was undertaken. I believe what the experts on the island continent finally revealed should also be an eye-opener for the global population. They observed that excessive mobile use among children leads to diminished mental focus, distorted thought patterns, growing anxiety, depression, loss of memory, emotional balance and much more. Will Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Sundar Pichai agree to this?
I daresay, it is not just children who are enslaved to mobiles; adults are too. With addiction, many of us have lost the ability to feel inner peace, and we tend to lose our cool at the drop of a hat. My friend, about fifty, is so fidgety that he can’t sit still until he checks every few minutes how many likes his recent post has received. This “syndrome” is a new sickness, an addiction as bad as drugs.
Imagine if adults’ minds can be corrupted by dopamine kicks from digital scrolling, what will become of our tender children? What future awaits them? Yes, unless we judiciously restrict children’s digital consumption from an early age, educate parents to raise awareness, and create strong societal safeguards, future generations may be pushed into the gutter. Whether one agrees or not, the human “subconscious mind” hugs filth and frivolities more quickly and more passionately than pearls of wisdom.
