Why is child's smartphone addiction worse than adult's?

Children's smartphone addiction in children is stronger than in adults, because a child's psyche is more fragile, Vladimir Skavysh, a child psychiatrist at JSC Medicine (Academician Roitberg Clinic in Russia), told RIAMO.

"Children's addiction to smartphones is much stronger. Child alcoholism and child drug addiction are also stronger compared to these phenomena in adults (with life experience, a mature psyche, and a developed intellect). Children's psyche is more fragile and vulnerable, more delicate," said Skavysh.

He added that treatment for any addiction begins with removing the addictive "substance" and giving up the addictive object.

"If I have been drinking, am drinking, and will continue to drink and drink half my salary, then my "treatment" for drinking is nothing. And so it is with any addiction. Only against the background of abstinence from the drug a person under the guidance of other people (doctors, psychologists, spiritual persons) can, if he wants, try to learn to live and enjoy life without the taken away agent of addiction," shared the specialist.

The treatment should be voluntary. If the patient does not want treatment, it is extremely difficult to help him.

"In psychiatry, alas, the mentally ill do not consider themselves sick, as a rule, which we call a special term - anosognosia," the doctor explained.

He explained that the first step is to overcome anosognosia. An addicted person, including a child, must recognize that he or she has a problem and an addiction.

"Overcoming anosognosia, understanding that I am an addict is the first step in treating any addiction, which in practice is demonstrated in Alcoholics Anonymous groups," Skavysh said.

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