Today's childhood is trapped between digital addiction and physical danger. Photo: AI Generated
Manu Tyagi, New Delhi. You may also remember the line of a song, 'Chhota bachcha jaaneke humko na samajana re'... This song from the film Masoom has become very popular. This is a song from 1996, which means older than Gen-ji's age. The children of that time had that childhood shyness and mischievousness along with the dignity of seriousness.
In general calculation, the people of that era have become parents of children today, but today's children of 5 to 14 years of age have maturity at an early age and are passionate about their own passion. Parents like it, why should we let them travel because of the struggle we faced, but you must also be worried that today's child, whether it is a son or a daughter, is very insecure. Have done.
For them, there is a well on one side and a ditch on the other. On one hand, there is the well of 'digital' virtual world whose depth is endless in the form of 'followers' and today's 'new cool'. And the 'physical' world for them is a ditch...a swamp in which children are rapidly disappearing and never coming back. More daughters are disappearing.
Not 'digital detox', but 'digital discipline'
Recently, such an incident happened in Ghaziabad, which is going to warn every family about their children that you too should be aware that giving mobile phones to children out of happiness or to entertain them or even in the pretext of studying, is a sign that you are taking them towards addiction.
This is not the first time that the Ghaziabad incident has happened; such incidents occur every day in the country to warn us, although there are very few indications of how alert we are. The Ghaziabad incident had crossed all limits of mobile addiction and then, through the virtual world, he got so engrossed in the culture of another country that he could not see anything else.
This is alarming for the society because at present in every second house there is some child or youth who is a victim of mobile addiction. Just as mobile addiction has become dominant in every other house, in the same way you will see that the trend of having only one child i.e. single child has also increased very fast in every other house, in which the relationships like aunt and uncle are also showing signs of becoming their past very soon.
To save children from this maze, what is needed is not 'digital detox' but 'digital discipline'. You must have noticed that children today learn more from examples than from teachings. The inter-generational phase is today rapidly changing its pattern in a very short span of time. The reason for this is that both society and upbringing are dependent on the crutch of technology.
In the past decade, both of them have run so fast on the shoulders of technology that everything is rising as a trend like the stock market and gold prices. Today children have started judging themselves on the basis of like and dislike. Likes and comments received on a photo have become paramount. Technology is easily accessible from facility to resource, but somewhere its excess is snatching away our mental capacity and memory power.
the ability to remember is decreasing
Studies have shown that people who use smartphones more, their memory capacity is decreasing by 10% compared to those who use less. The average concentration span of Indians is also decreasing due to social media and constant notifications.
There has been a 12% decline in sustained attention span among Indian youth. In rural India, due to digital disorientation, traditional storytelling and oral traditions are shrinking, these have also reduced by 30%. Yes, now even if grandparents want to narrate stories, children prefer to listen to stories from the virtual world through parents instead.
Not only this, excessive screen time affects the 'grey matter' of the brain. Due to which both the ability to take decisions and maintain cognition is affected. For this, experts recommend 'digital detox' and brain exercises.
Just last week, during the discussion on examinations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said many such things for the students, which the relatives of today's generation can make their children follow with discipline from their experience.
Mobile, gaming, digital world are not crimes, these are careers of today and future. Artificial Intelligence today, which is solving every puzzle of yours in the blink of an eye, is also a gift of the human mind. And in the world of cricket, the one who scored 175 runs in 80 balls, hitting more sixes on the pitch than his age, is also just a 14-year old Indian boy.
What I mean to say is that not everyone can become like them, but the desire to be different from the crowd and do something for oneself will have to be decided by ourselves and our upbringing. For that, there is a need to take proper and right steps in the right direction at the right time.
Alarm bells, it is important to wake up on time
Three sisters in Ghaziabad had made themselves so addicted to Korean culture through the virtual world that they had to go to Korea and get married there. In his suicide note, a line written for his younger sister was that Debu is Bollywood, that is, Indian, we hate it.
That's why mother Tina, who tried to save all three of them from the web of this culture, was also an enemy. In fact, the biggest culprits of this are those parents who kept pushing them into the digital well by ignoring them at necessary times. Awareness, timely intervention and dialogue are the keys to solving this. After this incident, reports of many psychiatrists and psychiatrists are also coming in.
Experts from the psychiatry department of many hospitals of Delhi, Ihbas, AIIMS, Safdarjung, RML, say that such cases have increased very rapidly. Parents are bringing their children, but they still fail to understand its symptoms at the right time. Child psychologists believe that their relatives fail to understand the symptoms of early disappointment, internal conflict over small thoughts or boredom.
The child frequently escapes into an imaginary world for relief. What is increasingly becoming a magnet is the phenomenon of " Korean entertainment content " that shows romance, friendship, and interconnected relationships; youth often consider it to be the 'new cool' and are influenced by it. This excessive obsession narrows the child's world and leads to depression, academic challenges, and their ability to deal with relationships.
Not only this, girls' attraction towards it has also increased rapidly, because they find the girl characters seen in Korean culture more beautiful. Data from consumer research firm Datum Intelligence also confirms that there are currently 11.9 million K-beauty buyers in India, with the number expected to grow to more than 27 million by 2030.
Recently, an event regarding Korean culture was held at the Korean Culture Center India in Delhi. It is good for a country's culture to flourish, but such a negative impact on the Gen-Z and small children of India, the youngest country in the world, can be fatal even for developed India and its culture.
This time i.e. in the economic survey released before the budget of 2026-27, the government's Chief Economic Advisor V Ananth Nageswaran also advised to give normal phones to children. Internet media has become dangerous for small children.
Countries like Australia, Finland have also banned social media for children below 15 years of age, India will also have to take the right decision in this direction at the right time. Because this concern is even bigger for India because more than 75 crore smartphones are sold here annually.
According to research firm Datareportal, there are more than one billion internet users in the country, more than 50 crore people are connected to YouTube, 40 crore are on Facebook and more than 48 crore are on Instagram. An even bigger alarm is that more than 75% of these apps are used by young children.
The shield of laws should not remain only on paper
Now let's talk about that chasm-like 'physical' danger which is visible everywhere in childhood, even outside the house. The number of missing children in India has always been alarming. NCRB report also shows that every eight minutes a child goes missing in the country. Even today human trafficking is the most major and frightening reason for this. In today's era, Internet has become another such medium for teenagers.
Through friendship and 'grooming' with unknown people, teenagers leave home due to their instigation. All the films made on missing children, from 'Slum Dog Millionaire' to 'Mardaani-3' show the story of missing children, but in reality, human trafficking in India is not like the violent kidnapping of the film world.
Here the smuggler does not come with weapons, here the attack is carried out by coaxing and gaining so-called trust. Many times, it involves the family or acquaintances of the victim, who take the girls out of the house by promising them a better future, job or education and later push them into the quagmire of exploitation.
This crime has been nurtured for decades on the ground of betrayal. And the saddest aspect is that even at a time when India has a strong shield of laws like POCSO Act, Child Law Act, Child Labor Prohibition Act and Child Marriage Prohibition for the protection of children, this still continues unabated.
The reason for this is also clear that the laws remained only on the books, if there was a unified and honest implementation of them then the future of the country would not have been in grave danger. The only thing is that in such cases the administration will have to intervene promptly even on the basis of suspicion.
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