Play games for 5 days and 5 nights without sleeping! Don't leave left-behind children "stuck in their phones"

Interviewed expert: Professor Ren Yuan, Institute of Population Research, Fudan University

Global Times health client reporter Yan Lixin

In order to develop or earn money to support their families, many rural parents leave their children in their hometowns to be cared for by their parents or other relatives and friends, resulting in a large number of left-behind children. Due to the lack of parental companionship and guidance, many left-behind children gradually developed psychological problems, such as low self-esteem, willfulness, temperament, withdrawn personality, etc., and at the same time, these children also formed behavioral dependence - addicted to smart phones.

In order to play games, I did not sleep for 5 days and 5 nights

Recently, the results of a survey released by the China Rural Governance Research Center of Wuhan University are shocking. Since 2021, researchers have conducted a questionnaire survey on mobile phone management for left-behind children for parents of primary and secondary school students in nine counties in Henan, Hubei and Hunan provinces, and collected about 13,000 valid questionnaires. The results showed that in rural areas in central China, 67.3% of parents of left-behind children believed that their children were addicted to mobile phones, of which 21.3% believed that their children were seriously addicted to mobile phones. 40.4% of left-behind children have exclusive mobile phones, and 49.3% use the mobile phones of their elders. Watching short videos and playing games are the main forms of online entertainment for left-behind children, accounting for 69% and 33.1% respectively.

In addition, when researchers conducted research in a township middle school in Guizhou, they found that some left-behind children did not sleep for five days and five nights in order to play games. During a home visit in Fenglin Town, Yangxin County, Hubei Province, researchers saw a 5-year-old child in one family staring at the screen of his mobile phone playing games, "his eyes were black, but he was very energetic." When asked what games he excels at, he enthusiastically shows off 6 gaming apps on his phone.

The researchers call for active intervention to prevent serious mobile phone addiction as a top priority for governments to care for and serve left-behind children.

Addicted to mobile phones, physically and mentally harmed

Long-term addiction to mobile phones has made the Internet dominate the direction of left-behind children's growth, which will bring serious harm to their physical and mental development.

Weaken physical and mental qualities. Addicted to mobile phones will make children neglect outdoor activities and physical exercise, affect growth and development, and lead to poor physical fitness.

Exposure to inappropriate content. Compared with children with parental restraint around them, left-behind children are more likely to be exposed to violence, pornography (including soft pornography) and other undesirable content, which in turn leads to extreme psychological problems, leading to self-harm and even suicide.

Causing distortion of the "three views". Under the overwhelming impact of online information, the social interaction and values of left-behind children are very easily affected. The values of entertainment and gamification promoted by the online world, such as short life, timely pleasure, and money worship, subtly shape the "three views" of left-behind children, which can easily cause serious mental collapse.

Feelings of boredom develop. Many left-behind children who are addicted to games are tired and resistant to learning, and even give up on themselves. Especially during the epidemic, classes can only be held online, and many left-behind children have mobile phones, which is the stage of a big outbreak of school weariness.

Addressing the lack of education is key

"Not only left-behind children, mobile phone addiction is a concern for the whole society." Ren Yuan, a professor at the Institute of Population Research of Fudan University, said in an interview with the "Global Times Health Client" reporter that the difference is that adults have a certain degree of self-control, while children and adolescents often have poor self-control, so they are more likely to indulge in mobile phones. In view of why left-behind children are more addicted to mobile phones, he believes that there are mainly the following reasons:

Lack of effective parental supervision. "This is the main reason why left-behind children are more likely to be addicted to mobile phones." Ren Yuan said. Although non-left-behind children have insufficient self-control, having parents on the side to supervise and guide them will still play a certain restrictive role on the whole. And those left-behind children whose parents are not around, often supervised by grandparents or other relatives and friends, one is because the way of grandparents care is often coddled, or the guardian "can't erase face", may lack effective supervision of mobile phone use behavior, and second, some adults in order not to let children disturb, and even take the initiative to hand over mobile phones to children to play, greatly aggravating the degree of addiction of children and adolescents to mobile phones.

Inner loneliness. If children do not live with their parents, it is easy to bring loneliness and melancholy. They often lack a common language with their grandparents and maternal grandparents due to different generations, or dare not open their hearts and speak freely to their guardians, and in the long run, the lack of security and belonging in the hearts of left-behind children can easily lead to loneliness, so they hope to find psychological comfort in the game world and entertainment world in mobile phones.

Network products create momentum. Driven by interests, Internet companies will continue to develop new products to increase user stickiness, or constantly create momentum to attract the attention of netizens in order to compete for traffic. Left-behind children are still unable to accurately distinguish the "feeding" effect of these online information, and are constantly flooded and attracted by this swollen information, so that they are addicted.

In order to prevent teenagers from becoming addicted to mobile phones, the Cyberspace Administration of China jointly launched the "Youth Anti-Addiction System" in 2019 together with a number of short video platforms, and gradually promoted its use across the platform. However, according to the reporter's observation, many application settings such as "anti-addiction system" and "teen mode" have not achieved the expected effect. In this regard, Ren Yuan pointed out that this shows that the "youth anti-addiction system" of these online platforms is not good enough, and does not really control the use of mobile phone software by children and adolescents, so it is necessary to increase research and development efforts to increase the effectiveness of the prevention system, which is not only beneficial to left-behind children, but also protects all minors.

In addition to restricting the use of mobile phone software, in order to fundamentally solve the Internet addiction of left-behind children, it is also necessary to pay attention to solving the problem of lack of effective parental supervision. Ren Yuan suggested that children should live with their parents as much as possible, and if parents go out to work, the place of immigration should implement a more inclusive and open policy to provide educational opportunities for migrant children.

It is also very important for family education to improve children's self-control. Ren Yuan proposed that, first of all, parents need to receive some knowledge education in child psychology and educational psychology, such as paying attention to children's mental health and how to guide and change children's behavior; Secondly, sometimes children's addiction to mobile phones may be due to the loneliness of their lives and the monotony of life content, so encouraging children to participate in peer activities, develop children's extracurricular interests, even if it is just "running in the field", can also help them free themselves from mobile phone addiction. ▲

Responsible editor: Luo Rong

Editor-in-chief: Xu Wenting