Panaji: This is an interesting and useful write up by Goa Technology Association President Milind Anvekar on how to keep your children away from mobile phones. Read this carefully:
Since the emergence of the internet and smartphones, research is showing an increase in the number of people struggling with an addiction to technology. There are three different types of digital addiction which include phone addiction, internet addiction and social media addiction resulting in problems connecting with family and friends, increased stress, and other problems relating to psychological and general wellbeing.
Winning a level of a video game and getting “likes” on a picture, releases dopamine, a feel-good chemical in the brain, just like drinking alcohol or using drugs does. Over time, we begin to crave this dopamine release, which compels us to use technology and internet enabled devices even more. While dopamine isn’t the sole cause of addiction, its motivational properties are thought to play a role in addiction. The reward center in your brain releases dopamine in response to pleasurable experiences. This part of your brain is also closely linked to memory and motivation. Technology can make us lazy and unproductive due to its added conveniences, keeping us from unlocking our full potential. Social media and mobile devices may lead to eyestrain and difficulty in focusing on important tasks. The overuse of technology may have a more significant impact on developing children and teenagers.
We can potentially try and break a digital addiction by turning off push notifications, schedule times to check your phone, or at least be mindful about it, use a timer to block your usage, replace smartphone use with something you value and don’t take your phone to bed. It is not fair to only blame children as they are growing up seeing and understanding that the phone is the most important thing. It is upto the parents to sort themselves first. Soon the schools will need to introduce subject on responsible technology usage. We as a society and state needs to build policy which will focus on human development in true sense rather than heading towards a virtual world. I appreciate the thought and initiative coming from our IT Minister and will be good to see some actions in the near future on this serious issue.
