Introduction
In the growing technological world, smartphone addiction has become a significant problem globally. Other people have a contrasting opinion that phone addiction is the way to find happiness; however, this is not true. Parents often feel worried because phone addiction negatively influences their child’s academic performance. The ethical principle that the paper will base on is the principle of nonmaleficence, which aims to weigh the benefits versus the harms of phone addiction.
The paper aims to help learners realize the disadvantages of phone addiction in this technological advancement era. However, it is ethical to be addicted to smartphone usage to the improvement of the academic knowledge of the learner. Excessive phone use among the young generation is disastrous as it contributes to long-term effects such as drug abuse and financial stress. I believe and hold the position that adolescents’ phone addiction is ethically wrong as it negatively affects their mental health and academic performance; resolving the problem requires a collaborative effort between the teachers, parents, and learners.
Phone Addiction in Youth
The addictive use of smartphones deleteriously alters the mental health of many young people across the world. A broad assumption exists that the young generation continuously interacting with their mobile devices improves their mental health; this is not the reality. Addictive behavior of smartphone use is linked with the interference with the regular daily routine of the young generation. Kornberg shows that in an extensive population survey of American high school learners, the addictive behavior was linked to high depression levels (483).
Through the interaction over the phone, the students receive depressive text messages from their peers, which interfere with their mental health. The learners are likely to interact with strangers who may easily lure them into adopting improper behavior within the community. Excessive phone usage paves an easy way for the learners to engage in an unwanted relationship through easy communication. These sexual relationships eventually culminate into unwanted teenage pregnancies and other sexually transmitted illnesses. The young people found in this menace are faced with depression, yet they should focus on their studies.
Higher suicide rates are correlated to the extensive addiction to smartphones. In the 2010s, researchers noted the suicide rate significantly rose; this was associated with smartphone use (Kornberg 483). Smartphones exploit the weakness in people’s minds, thus distracting them from what makes them happy in their daily life. Some students research the various methods they could use to harm themselves through the internet. Young people are exposed to harmful information over social media, which causes them to develop suicidal thoughts.
The students assume to find the happiness they desire over the internet, but it aggravates their psychological problems. The learners waste their limited time on social media and thus fail to excel in their studies. It adversely affects their future career choices, and therefore they can quickly kill themselves because of their poor academic performance.
The irrational phone usage among young people for non-socializing aspects is correlated with high rates of depression. Non-socializing elements such as news and entertainment may depress adolescents (Kornberg 483). The increased occurrence of sad news, such as frequent accidents and political killings, may exacerbate personal life concerns. Watching the report of a known person’s death drains mental energy. These worries may affect the student’s concentration in class towards the attainment of success.
The positive newscast correlates with the achievement of good mental health, while the devastating news affects the mind adversely. The reduced phone addiction can subsequently lead to a decreased exposure to the traumatizing news edition; this consequently improves the mental health of an individual.
The constant smartphone use has affected face-to-face conversation among people. Direct communications play a critical role in ensuring that people communicate with each other and thus share issues that could be affecting them (Kornberg 483). The constant phone addiction has made the younger people fail to develop face-to-face communication correctly; therefore, they fear sharing the problems affecting them with the relevant people. They end up with psychological stress instead of opening conversations with their peer counselors, teachers, and peers.
The young generation spends most time researching how they can overcome some issues in their lives and ultimately fail to find the appropriate solution. Failing to find the proper solution predisposes them to engage in unacceptable behavior within the community, such as alcoholism, to improve their psychological health. These aggravate the problem by inclining them to consequences of alcoholism such as health, social and economic effects. Speaking their issues to another person, especially a counselor, would have helped prevent young people from engaging in drug abuse.
Smartphone addiction contributes to gambling disorders among the young generation. Smartphone addiction creates financial problems among the learners and new generation (Kornberg 484). There is a desire from a young age to acquire more money, and therefore they will do everything within their means to find the cash. Online betting and gambling are ways people think they can quickly achieve their desired wealth status without hard work. The contrary happens when they lose the little money they have through these undesired online activities.
When young people continuously lose the little finances they have, they develop stress. Some students use fees given to them by their parents to engage in online betting and gambling. When they lose this cash through betting, an enormous mental health issue ensues, and they develop the fear of telling their parents the reality of what happened. Therefore, such learners think the best way to overcome the problem is to commit suicide because of the shame they have heaped on themselves through online gambling.
Smartphone addiction can cause lead to impulsive shopping among people without the appropriate budgeting because ordering items is through the click of a button. These create financial problems, and even teenagers can use online shopping as a way they can acquire illegal goods (Sahu et al. 263).
Through online shopping, they can purchase illicit drugs and even firearms which they can use to harm other people. The teenagers are not seen going to the shops to buy these illegal products as they hide in anonymous online accounts; the products are delivered to them at the doorstep. These illegal products are expensive, and they financially strain those purchasing them. Therefore, impulsive buying behavior makes young people develop psychological stress due to the financial constraints versus their demands. These may culminate in undesired mental health status among young people, such as suicide.
Extreme smartphone usage may reduce phone lifetime, thereby increasing maintenance and purchasing costs. Parents may deny their children the privilege to own phones while still students. These learners may watch their colleagues with efficient smartphones, which psychologically affects their mental health. Financially stressed learners cannot efficiently concentrate on their studies and ultimately have poor academic performance (Kornberg 483).
The desire to own good smartphones the teenagers may lead to them stealing money from their parents or even stealing the phones of their peers. Maintaining smartphones may be costly to some teenagers as they are unemployed, resulting in financial stress. Other learners may use the money given to them by their parents for fee payment. It may increase the parent-child conflict, adversely affecting the child’s psychological status. The child may physically get harmed because of the intense anger from the parent.
Smartphone addiction contributes to accidents that could have been avoided through safe driving. Impulsive phone use leads to operating the smartphone in dangerous circumstances such as driving. It leads to accidents that cause the loss of lives and lifetime disabilities. In Nigeria, it was estimated that about 90% of the drivers were prone to phone addiction, and approximately 65% reported having had an accident related to phone use while driving (Adeyemi 486). The study showed that the people addicted to mobile phones were 2.47 times more likely to be involved in a phone addiction-related accident (Adeyemi 486). The conclusion drawn from the study was that impulsive phone use was a significant factor contributing to road accidents.
A child losing a parent through an accident leads to a disastrous mental health impact as they miss the tender lover parents accord to their children. The pain of losing a parent is intense, and an orphan child may face challenges such as support and properly acquiring the best education. Therefore, excessive smartphone usage has led to reckless driving among individuals, leaving many children as orphans.
The phone addiction curiosity may predispose young people to adult content on social media. Sharma et al., in their study, proved that phone addiction has a positive correlation with internet use and pornography addiction (25). The children exposed to this adult content cannot effectively concentrate in class to achieve optimal academic performance. Through their curiosity, these children attempt to imitate what they watch in the pornographic content. It ultimately leads to teenage pregnancies and an increased risk of exposure to sexually transmitted diseases.
Pregnant teenagers face the risk of early discontinuation of their studies, consequently hampering their prosperity in the future. Young individuals may have the financial burden of raising children born through unplanned pregnancies. Other teenagers may be tempted to terminate the pregnancy before term. These abortion practices have life-threatening consequences for the mother’s life, and thus it may cause the teenage girl’s death. Sexually transmitted diseases may further culminate in the demise of the underage. Teenagers opt for abortion because of the financial constraints that accompany unplanned pregnancies. Therefore, it creates psychological trauma, which increases the risk of teenagers committing suicide.
The prolonged phone addiction leads to increased screentime which has harmful effects on an individual’s health. The children become addicted to video games on their phones, affecting their vision. Abed et al. argued that vision problem is the most common problem among the students, and it dominantly correlated with excessive phone usage (5). In the study in Alkut technical Institutes, approximately 82% of the students had vision problems because of phone addiction (Abed et al. 415).
The health problems affect the comfort that the students should have to get the proper education. Some students may require the purchase of spectacles and contact to facilitate their learning; therefore, this increases the financial strain faced by the parent and student. The money used to purchase these visual aids could have been used elsewhere to help improve the child’s academics.
Many students are aware of the health effects of phone addiction, but through their ignorance, they continue indulging in inappropriate behavior (Abed et al. 415). Parents who lack the necessary financial assistance fail to buy the contact lens or spectacles for their children, and the learner’s psychological and academic performance is impacted negatively.
Adolescents addicted to their phones have poor sleep patterns as they spend most of their time chatting and gaming. Scrolling on the phone overnight makes an individual experience restlessness. Ibrahim et al., in their study, showed that irrational smartphone usage leads to dependency problems categorized by the continued performance of an action ignoring its negative outcome (2). Therefore, the poor sleep pattern is implicated in class through the poor concentration and even sleeping during the class sessions. Poor academic performance is correlated with learners who have poor sleep problems. The students may develop nomophobia, which encompasses the fear when the mobile phone is not close to the learner.
The poor sleep patterns characterized by deranged students’ academic performance predispose them to stress. These may contribute to the suicide experienced among school-going children. The children may develop sleep disorders such as nightmares because of the threatening material watched through social media. The learners may still sleep during the day more than the required time when they are at home with their parents. Insomnia due to phone usage, therefore, negatively affects the student’s quality of life.
Phone addiction among adolescents causes a disjointed relationship between the learners and their parents. Zhen et al. proved that during the COVID-19 lockdown, parent-child conflicts arose during house chore sharing and academic supervision (7). Parents may want their children’s assistance to help them perform some house chores, but youngsters may not want to be disrupted by their phones. There could be an emphasis on children concentrating on their studies and avoiding wasting their time on phones. The learners may not be happy with these parents’ decisions and may decide to revolt against them. It, in turn, aggravates the anger of the parents who feel despised by their children. It ultimately ensures a fight or conflict that affects the mental health of both the youth. Adolescents unwillingly persuaded to concentrate on their may likely have good performance in school. They are reluctant to learn because of their phone addiction and thus cannot perform optimally academically.
A parent addicted to their smartphone shows a bad example to the child. Parent-child communication is essential in a family as it dictates unity. When children seek help to communicate with their parents who are entirely focused on their phones, they may feel ignored. It leads to a disjointed family, and the young ones lose interest in sharing pivotal issues regarding their lives with their parents. It results in the children suffering loneliness and stress because of the lack of the parent’s support (Zhen et al. 7). These untold suffering easily provoke suicidal thoughts in these youngsters.
The financial strain plays a vital role in determining students’ academic performance. Learners who effectively communicate with their parents are likely to perform better in their studies than those with disjointed relationships. A parent can listen to the adolescent through efficient communication and provide the essential tools to improve school performance. Proficient communication between the parent and the learner helps the latter learn to adapt to various psychological challenges through life effectively.
Excessive use of smartphones increases the risk of cyberbullying, which is all over internet. Gül et al. proved that the lack of awareness by the adolescents visiting social media makes them cyberbullying victims (550). Learners may get discriminated against online because of their race, affecting their psychological health. The harmful information the learners are exposed to over social media may affect their academic performance (Kornberg 483).
The victims of cyberbullying are predisposed to emotional and mental effects. The children may feel embarrassed and overwhelmed by the insults they receive from social media. If the cyberbullying messages are shared with many people, it may intensify the feelings of humiliation faced by the adolescent. The victims may feel isolated and alone because of the insults. The cyberbullied learners may further get angered by what happened to them, and some opt to retaliate through online and physical means to the person doing the action. They develop low self-esteem as they feel that they are the most vulnerable members of society. Eventually, cyberbullied individuals lose interest in school, which negatively affects their academic performance.
The death threats and harmful messages that the learners get ultimately decrease the sense of safety that the learners yearn to have. Learners who are not assured of their safety will perform dismally in their studies (Kornberg 483). These children may skip school sessions because of the death threats they receive from online sources, as they believe they can meet the people threatening them in school. These behaviors may warrant the academic suspension of the individual skipping the class session. It negatively impacts the learner’s career future and their mental health. The death threats drive them to face difficulty efficiently concentrating in class to attain the desired academic performance. The learners who have been harassed online are likely to engage in alcohol intake to overcome the stress faced by the threats. The death threats make the individuals completely lose hope in their lives as they develop decreased desire to live.
Phone addiction issues became a significant concern after the invention of smartphones that had access to internet services. Before, the social conditions encouraged more face-to-face conversation while reduced phone addiction. The problem is of great concern because it reduces learners’ focus on their studies. I believe phone addiction negatively affects the mental health of the children, which aggravates suicide thoughts and undesirably impacts the learner’s academic performance. The learners are predisposed to harmful content such as pornography, threats, and cyberbullying, affecting their psychological health.
The problem with my topic is that it may be ethically right to be addicted to a phone as a learner and extensively use it for research purposes. This will significantly widen the learner’s knowledge acquired in class and build on research techniques. My value systems dictate that I cannot support the aspect of phone addiction among students. Based on the principle of nonmaleficence, I regard that there are more harms than benefits of phone addiction among teenagers.
Conclusion
In conclusion, phone addiction in the young generation is a serious menace that requires global attention and combined efforts to attenuate the problems. Parents and teachers need to play a vital role in advising their children of the harmful consequences of irrational phone usage. On the other hand, the children should be willing to listen and adapt the advice they receive from their parents and teachers. Parents should act as role models by using their phones rationally. In this way, the learners will emulate the reasonable phone use and attain its desired meaningful use.
The learners must realize that their current goal is to focus on education to achieve the desired career goals; therefore, they should avoid phone overdependence. Parents must show a willingness to listen to their children to reduce the latter from feeling lonely. They should be accountable and avoid developing problems such as stealing, betting addiction, and impulse online shopping.
Works Cited
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Zhen, Rui, et al. “Social isolation, loneliness, and mobile phone dependence among adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic: Roles of parent-child communication patterns.”International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 2021, pp. 1–15.