A psychotherapist and child expert, Dr. Charlotte Armitage, claims that phone addiction could reduce a child’s life expectancy. She explains that addiction could cause issues to mental health like anxiety. It could also affect physical health, thus causing cardiovascular problems and other comorbidities.
Dr. Armitage restricts phone use in her home
Dr. Armitage is applying these findings to her child, banning her nine-year-old from social media. She also doesn’t allow her to use phones in an emergency. Dr. Armitage adds that phone addiction could affect psychological areas leading to behavior that reduces lifespan.
She details her experience of seeing her daughter’s friends visit her house. The children often sit on their phones, posting things on social media instead of watching the movie they came over to see. The doctor describes them as zombies while in this state.
Phones make it difficult to form relationships
Dr. Armitage believes using phones too often could harm children as it impacts their mental and physical health. She adds that using the phone too much could make it difficult for children to learn how to develop relationship skills and improve interpersonal relationships.
Forming relationships with others is crucial to people’s health, so learning interpersonal skills is essential. For this reason, Dr. Armitage believes that phones should be restricted entirely from children as all it does is wire addiction mechanisms in their brain.
Addiction results from releasing feel-good hormones such as dopamine from the brain. Using social media websites such as TikTok and Instagram can trigger dopamine release.
The release of this hormone makes the brain recognize the action as a reward. Unfortunately, the impact lessens each time a trigger, such as social media, is administered. As a result, people watch more social media to achieve the same euphoria leading to addiction.
Addiction becomes a problem when it impacts a child’s personal life. It can hurt their relationships when they find it hard to put the phone down to interact with their friends and family.
Dr. Armitage also warns that grooming is also something to watch out for. It now occurs on social media; thus, monitoring what children watch online is essential.
