How Does Smartphones Affect Children

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Smartphone: Impact on children
Introduction
Smartphone is a mobile phone fulfills many functions of a computer, including Internet access, touchscreen interface, and an operating system that can run downloaded applications (Oxford University, 2010). It is one of a technology that continuously improving, which using smartphones started to become an important role in people’s life. In Hong Kong, 92% of male and 82% of female that aged between 15 to 19 years old have their own smartphones, and for adults between 20 to 29 years old, 97% of male and 93% of female owns a smartphone. According to the survey, there are 96% of people in Hong Kong using their smartphones to go online every day (“Smartphone Usage in Hong Kong”, 2014). Nowadays, the first thing that people grab in the morning is their smartphone and people won’t leave home without it (“Smartphone Usage in Hong Kong”, 2014). In fact, both positive and negative impact of using smartphones exist. Aim of this paper This paper would analyze the smartphones’ impact on children. For children, using or having smartphones may not be a good choice, since there are more negative impact than positive, including long-term health risk, inappropriate distractions, safety issue and social issue. Long-term health risk Spending too much time on using smartphones may result in a long-term health risk. 35.6% of people claim that they spend around 1 to 2 hours on using smartphones every day, while 20.7% of people spend more than 4 hours per day (Hong Kong Christian Service, 2013). It shows that the frequency of usage of smartphones is very high. As for children with low self-control or children who use smartphones without enough guidance, they may not be able to control their time of using smartphone, they may spend too much time on playing and cause permanent injury. In 2011, the World Health Organization (WHO) classified the radiation released by mobile phones as “possibly carcinogenic” (Beckford, 2011). It means that radio frequency electromagnetic fields released by smartphones would be absorbed into our body, which is a damage to our bodies. For children, any possible damage to their developing brains and nervous systems is even more worrying than for adults. The emission of radio frequency may also damage other parts of the body, such as the central nervous system, and result in having a negative impact on learning or behavior, or even causing cancers in organs other than the brain (Kumar, 2014). Although it is true that there is no conclusive evidence at this stage to proof, letting children use smartphones for a long time must be taking the risk. Besides, using electronic devises in a fixed position on the prolonged can cause musculoskeletal symptoms (Department of Health, 2013). There is also
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They always have a misunderstanding that they believe the personal information they provide is private, which means they think that they are being protected behind the screen, and this erroneous would definitely increase the risk of abuse. In fact, nearly 43% of children have been bullied online and 25% of children have had it happen more than once, while 10% of children have taken some embarrassing or damaging photos of themselves without their permission, frequently using smartphones (“Cyber Bullying Facts”, 2014). More than that, 53% of children admitted that they had said something mean or hurtful to others online, while one-third of children have done more than …show more content…
According to a survey in the U.S., 51% of children communicate with their friends on their cell phones every day, but only 29% of children spend time with friends in person and do some extracurricular activities. It is widely regarded as a risk reflects the broader social change. Only 33% of teens say that they have experienced online that made them feel closer to another person. After smartphones and social network are being popular, face-to-face communication are declined. Only 25% of teens meet with friends face-to-face every day. Besides, parents spend an average of 1500 minutes on the phone to family members each year, which makes children grow up without good manners, and they become very hard to relate to those around them in a normal way. Besides, according to a survey, more than three quarters of parents think that technology has had a negative effect on family life, which they think that mobile phones should be banned from the dinner table (Richmond,

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