A Survey Reveals How Bad Is Internet Addiction Among Indian Children

After two years of pandemic, finding children glued to gadgets is not unusual. Yet, going by results of a latest survey, it’s becoming somewhat alarming.

More than 40% of urban Indian parents admit children aged between 9 to 17 are addicted to videos, gaming and social media, according to the survey conducted by LocalCircles—a community social media platform.

Parents, however, admit that they are directly or indirectly responsible for this “addiction”, now abundantly visible in children. About 31% of the respondents said children were learning from them.

Nearly 28% of them said that providing children access to gadgets earlier than they should have was the cause for the addiction, while 26% attributed it to school-related online activities.

Screen-time during the pandemic spiked as children were confined to their homes. Besides online classes, children were using smartphones, tablets or laptops to watch videos, play games and chat with peers, the survey said.

The survey received over 65,000 responses from parents residing in 287 districts of India. Nearly 51% respondents were from metro and tier 1 districts, 37% from tier 2 districts and 12% were from tier 3 and tier 4 districts.

Of the 8,238 responses received from parents with children aged 13 to 17 years, 71% said their children have access to a smartphone for all or most of the day. 55% parents with children between ages nine to 13, said their children had a smartphone available for nearly the full day.