BAREILLY: Imagine a three-year-old addicted to mobile phone being counselled. When a woman brought her three-year-old son to Mann Kaksh, counselling centre at

hospital, she complained that her child was suffering from bed-wetting (enuresis) and needed help. Later, though, it turned out that he was not going to the loo because he didn’t want to leave the phone even for a few minutes.

And the three-year-old toddler, who spent around eight hours daily watching ‘Doraemon’ and ‘Motu Patlu’, is not alone. In an eye-opener for parents, Mann Kaksh has received 39 cases of children addicted to mobile phones in two months - most of them belonging to age group of 10 to 18 years, growing up in a virtual world of social media and video games.

A concerned Dr Ashish Kumar, psychiatrist at district hospital, told TOI, “In majority of the cases, it came to light that parents provide mobile to their children at an early age to keep the kids busy so that their own work is not affected. This later becomes a cause of addiction and bad behaviour among children.”

On the three-year-old boy’s counselling, Khush Ada, clinical psychologist at Mann Kaksh, said, “In the case of three-year-old addicted to phone, his mother would handover mobile to her child while performing household chores. Even when he came for therapy session, he didn’t let his parents talk to us till he got the phone.”

Most parents who visit the counselling centre complain of study-related problems and headache among children. However, after going through case history, they learn that the root cause is mobile addiction. “Children spend hours on their phones browsing social media sites and playing games. They start living in a virtual world and ignoring studies and sleep. If a phone is taken away from them, they become agitated. We conduct counselling of both parents and the child for digital detox,” added Ada.

Chief medical officer Dr Vineet Shukla said, “Parents should restrict use of phones among children. To keep children engaged, parents should make them play with blocks or in the open.”

Mobile addiction leads to other diseases among youngsters, too. Dr Kumar said, “Many young people end up spending long hours on phones to cope up with anxiety and depression. A few of them become more frustrated as they start comparing their lives with others on social media. The long hours on mobile disturb their sleep. They all are inter-connected.”

For deaddiction, a counsellor suggested that young people should uninstall apps or games on which they spend maximum time or change the colour code of phone as black and white so that they “stop enjoying games”. Young people can also keep their phones far away from their beds before going to sleep so that they don’t touch it if they wake up in the middle of night, the counsellor added.