It is no big surprise that teens are obsessed with smartphone technology. No matter where they go, they are always found holding a smartphone in their hands. With this technology, they can perform a number of activities within no time. Whether it is about interacting with their friends, searching for information for school homework, browsing social media sites, playing games, or watching movies, smartphones help them stay up-to-date and on top of their game.
While smartphones can help teens for both educational and recreational activities, they can also lead them to intense levels of pressure, stress, and other mental health problems. Not to forget the several harmful dangers teens may come across while using smartphones to an extreme extent.
The more time teens spend on their smartphones, the more they are drawn towards potential online dangers such as cyberbullying, sexting, adult content, online predators, hacking, etc. Parents can surely consider using a phone spy app to monitor, control, and manage their teens’ smartphone usage but can they prevent them from getting addicted to smartphones?
There may not be a proper diagnosis for smartphone addiction but parents can instantly know if their teens are getting too much obsessed with smartphones. They just need to observe their behavior closely, look for signs and symptoms of cell phone addiction, see how much time they are spending on their devices, and find out the reason behind everything.
Teens Smartphone Addiction: What Does Stats Say?
A closer look at the stats will give us more insight into teens’ smartphone addiction. According to the 2016 Common Sense Media Report, it was revealed that 50 percent of teens feel addicted to smartphones whereas 59 percent of parents believed that their kids were addicted to their smartphones.
The same survey also revealed that 72 percent of teens and 48 percent of parents felt the need to immediately respond to texts, instant messages, and other notifications. 78 percent of teens and 69 percent of parents checked their devices at least every other hour.
A Pew Research Report which was published in 2018 showed that 45 percent of teens said that they use the internet almost constantly and 44 percent of them said that they go online multiple times a day. The same report also revealed that 50 percent of teen girls were more active on the internet compared to 39 percent of teen boys. Similarly, the same report showed that 95 percent of teens own a smartphone.
Teens spending more hours on their smartphones is one thing and teens using smartphones for what purpose is another. It is important for parents to focus more on how teens use their smartphones instead of worrying about them spending too much time on their devices.
How Parents Can Help Teens Overcome their Smartphone Addiction
Looking at the brighter side, we can say that smartphones can be helpful for teens in several ways. With smartphones, teens can connect with their friends and peers, get help on their school homework, and use educational and recreational apps. Sometimes, it might feel like teens constantly stay glued to their mobile screens but, in reality, they are using the devices within healthy boundaries.
If only teens can learn to manage and control the use of smartphones and also maintain a healthy balance between smartphone use and other healthy activities, they can prevent themselves from developing smartphone addiction.
The good news is that parents can help their teens maintain a healthy balance. Here are some ways parents can help teens get over their smartphone addiction.
Educate Teens
Being a parent, you can educate your teens about the advantages and disadvantages of spending too much time on smartphones. It is advisable to not lecture your teens about maintaining the right balance between smartphone use and other activities because sometimes teens may not like the sound of it. Instead, ask for their input about the benefits and potential risks of too much screen time so they can feel important and equally participate in the conversation with you. Explain to your teens how spending too much time on smartphones can put a negative impact on their growth and development.
Set Healthy Limits
You can discuss with your kids about setting healthy limits and boundaries for smartphone use at home. These rules should not only be observed by teens but you as well. For instance, you should not allow the use of smartphones during meal time, bedtime, etc. When you follow these rules along with your teens, you can create a healthy balance between your smartphone use and other important activities.
Monitor Smartphone Activity
Parents can also install a cell spy app and enable parental controls to monitor their teen’s smartphone activities. It is better to take teen’s consent before installing these apps on their smartphones. You need to make them understand and tell them the reasons for installing a monitoring app on their device. Tell them you want to ensure their online safety and keep them away from potential online dangers. That way teens wouldn’t feel a sense of betrayal and understand that you did not intend to invade their privacy. The good thing about monitoring and parental control apps is that they help you manage, monitor, and control your teen’s smartphone use. At the same time, they can let you set time limits for specific apps installed on their phones.
Create a Check-in Plan
You can set some house rules and policies for your teens if you do not want them to become addicted to smartphones. For instance, you should never allow your teens to use their electronic devices in their bedrooms or during bedtime. Using smartphones or any other devices at bedtime can disrupt your teen’s sleep and cause insomnia. Smartphone addiction can also instill feelings of depression, loneliness, and anxiety among teens. Therefore, you need to create a proper check-in plan at a particular time in the morning as well as evening to keep a close check on your teen’s smartphone activities.
Become Good Digital Role Models
Teens tend to follow in the footsteps of their parents. Whatever parents will do in front of them, teens will adopt the same behavior. If parents remain glued to their smartphones in front of teens, it is natural for teens to observe this behaviour and imitate them. It’s important to set smartphone usage limits and boundaries for yourself as well. Your teens will only follow them if you do that yourself. Therefore, your main focus should be becoming good digital role models for your kids.
