social media addiction:: Source – Istock Janet Ogundepo Using smartphones, tablets, and other electronic devices to calm the tantrums of children between one and three years old may hinder their emotional development, psychologists have warned. They raised concerns that such children might eventually struggle with handling their emotions and social interactions, as well as suffer from language impairments. The experts in separate interviews with PUNCH Healthwise, further cautioned that excessive digital device use in young children could trigger the early onset of underlying psychological issues.
Tantrums, according to KidsHealth, are outbursts of temper that range from crying, screaming, kicking, hitting and whining, and which is common in children between the ages of one and three. Johns Hopkins Medicine says that tantrums are part of the developmental process of children and are usually used to express their frustrations or displeasure. Findings from a recent study conducted by researchers from Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, and published in the journal, Frontiers in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, revealed that more parents used phones or tablets as a pacifying tool for their children’s anger or frustration.
The researchers noted that children regularly given digital devices to calm their tantrums would not learn to regulate their emotions, leading to several emotion-regulation problems in the future. One of the researchers, Dr Veronika Konok, said, “Ta.