Short videos are becoming a familiar part of the digital life of children and teenagers. With just a few swipe operations, viewers are constantly taken to new content, from healthy entertainment to sensational, violent, offensive videos or promoting unconventional behaviors.
As screen time lengthens day by day, the story with many families often begins with a familiar conclusion: "I'm addicted to phones!
But behind a child constantly watching short videos, there may be many other issues that need to be seen.
It's not like watching too much is "addictive
According to psychologist Tran Thi Huong - NHC Vietnam Center for Human Development and Psychology, caution is needed when using the word "addiction" for children who spend a lot of time on short videos.
We should carefully label'addiction' for teenagers. Because there are people who watch a lot but are not necessarily addicted. Watching a lot of videos on the phone affects mental health, psychological state, nervous system health and physical health.
More importantly, it is the state of loss of control and impairment of functions in life, bodily functions. We need to pay attention to and pay attention to this," the expert emphasized.
To assess whether a case is really worrying or not, experts focus on 3 factors: loss of control, consequences and prolonged time.
If you see that teenagers cannot control the use of phones or behaviors that clearly affect their studies, academic results or quality of life, health quality, for example, affecting sleep, eating, health and then family relationships, with friends even though parents have provided very active support but children do not improve, then take your children to see experts," expert Tran Thi Huong shared.
On the other hand, experts believe that changes in emotions and daily life also need to be observed by the family. Accordingly, children may become sad, pensive, anxious, withdrawn, lose interest in activities that they used to love, or have disorders in sleep, eating, negative thoughts...
However, these manifestations should not be implicitly attributed to phone use.
We need to consider the reasons, the causes are even broader. And of course, the fact that children use phones a lot is also one of the reasons," expert Tran Thi Huong noted.
Don't just look at the phone
What expert Tran Thi Huong especially noted is that behind the excessive use of phones may be the difficulties children are facing.
Labeling a young person or a child as'phone addicted' sometimes makes children feel insecure, feel like they have a problem. Meanwhile, the important thing is that we need to find out what made children need phones, need screens so much," the expert said.
According to experts, the causes may stem from "loneliness, academic pressure, conflicts in the family, lack of connection or other psychological difficulties that children face.
Therefore, the act of constantly scrolling videos needs to be seen as a sign for parents to learn more about their child's condition.
We don't just look at behavior, but look at behavior to find out the causes, the reasons behind it. Then, we will understand the reasons behind the behaviors of watching phones for many hours, watching phones continuously, surfing videos to get joy or entertainment," expert Tran Thi Huong emphasized.
From this perspective, the question parents ask should not stop at whether children are "addicted" or not.
The phone can therefore only be a manifestation of a bigger problem. To help children escape that loop, families first need to correctly identify what is happening to their children, instead of just trying to take the device out of their children's hands.
