Essay Example on Children and Mobile Phones: Impact of Globalization & Technology

Introduction

Due to the improved rate of globalization and the immediate impact of technology worldwide, children all over have been exposed to phones. Ideally, several phones are presently being sold at lower prices compared to the past decade when the costs were comparatively high. This fact made its phones more accessible to children. While some children use phones to establish communications with friends and relatives, some use it to play a countless number of games, while the rest used to watch films and so forth. Having said, it is essential to point out that the most substantial challenge is not reliant on the activities that children engage in using their phones, but rather the time taken to perform those activities. Be it games, films, or social media; the vital problem is the notion of screen time, where kids excessively engage with phones, to the extent of suffering severe impacts henceforth. The purpose of this study is to discuss the consequences that using mobile phones has caused students at school.

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Effects of Growing Tumors

In the recent past, several researchers have tried to investigate the possibilities of having growing tumors on children than it is in adults. Ideally, the tissues of children are usually on constant growth, as they tend to mature progressively. Due to this fact, radiation from mobile phones can be more detrimental to children. Studies have shown that children's tendency to get exposed to emissions close to their ears repeatedly, eventually causes an occurrence of non-malignant tumors, especially close to their ears and brain. Upon analysis, it is having been found that tissues and bones of children are customarily thin in size, hence has a higher probability of absorbing the mobile rays (Meena et al.). These absorbed radiations have a stimulating effect on the children's bodies. For instance, they may affect the nervous system. At the same time, reports by the World Health Organization further estimates that mobile radiation is among the vital leading causes of cancer in youths and children (Meena et al.)

Disturbance on the Brain Activity

The ideal functionality of mobile phones is based on a series of electromagnetic waves that work to facilitate communication. Similarly, the human brain has its electric impulses that supports communication between a range of neural networks. Conventionally, human impulses should be strong enough to resist the effects of external commutation waves because possible absorption will disrupt the functioning of an individual's neural networks (Philip and Dutton). Perhaps, there is no doubt in mind that adults have a more robust chain of internal impulses, which can repel a potential attempt of external communication waves to penetrate the human brain during exposure. In contrast, the external communication waves generated by mobile phones are usually more reliable than those produced by a child's mind. Therefore, these waves quickly get into the brains of children and eventually cause internal damages in brain activity. Henceforth, scientists have noted it is due to the impaired child's brain activity, which causes regular moody patterns, and other behavioral tendencies (Philip and Dutton).

Impact on Academic Performance

Although it is undoubtedly that technology has leveraged the standards of education in schools and that children could use their phones to enrich themselves with adequate knowledge and skills through engaging in internet searching, the negative impacts on them are still outstanding. A majority of children find it difficult to control their screen time, and to balance between leisure time, and constructive use of the phones (Kirschner and Karpinski). Moreover, they can hardly realize the impacts of mobile phones at their ages, due to their weaker levels of intelligent quotient (IQ). Studies in the United Stated have postulated that 23% of children often carry their phones with them to schools (Kirschner and Karpinski). While at school, they keep on chatting with friends and playing endless games that further affects their concentration levels in academic work. The lack of paying attention to every concept or lesson has made most children fail in their final examinations, and hence poor academic performance.

Promotion of Academic Malpractices

Mobile phones not only make some children perform poorly in education but also enhances the occurrence of academic malpractices. It has been evidenced by some researchers that some children use their mobile phones to help them pass exams. For instance, mobile phones can have built-in calculators, store lesson images, and also share answers in the exam room through chats. Students hence lose focus, and the spirit of hard work or determination to genuinely acquire their grades, taking advantage of the increased usage of mobile phones (Animasahun and Ogunniran). Such practices not only affect the level of academic performance but also poses a vital challenge in the build-up process of great personalities who are creative and innovative to address the future arising problems in the world (Animasahun and Ogunniran).

Medical Related Issues and Mental Health Problems

As children continue to glue themselves on mobile phones, it is evident that the majority do it to the expense of engaging in other physical body activities that freshen up their bodies. For instance, children are required to get exposed to sunlight more often, to avoid the possible suffering of rickets (Bianchi and Phillips). Meanwhile, children excessively engage in mobile games and social media communication, thus get either less or no time to walk or perform physical fitness activities. Other than the risks of getting rickets, there are possibilities of getting obesity, other mental health challenges, which can further develop into severe chronic and mental disorders such as hypertension (Bianchi and Phillips).

Furthermore, there are fears that most children get cyberbullied in the social media platforms but fail to admit early enough that corrective diagnostic techniques are undertaken. Perhaps, those who experience the challenge of cyberbullies get exposed to mental health problems like post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD), which may be difficult to manage once they become adults (Bianchi and Phillips).

Conclusion

To wrap it up, the use of mobile phones is disastrous for children at almost every angle. Even though it is true that mobile phones can equally be used constructively to generate significant benefits for various purposes, its usage needs control and efficient reasoning to understand how and when such benefits can be obtained. Unfortunately, children's level of intelligent quotient is much lower, to reason, and explore the drawbacks that mobile phones can impose on them. Besides, the study has found that most of the challenges faced by children become harmful in their adult ages; therefore, it is impossible that they control the use of mobile phones by themselves since they may not be in a position to actualize or realize these impacts. Parents and caretakers should thus help their children to regulate screen time as much as possible to avoid the arising of the challenges, because some may require colossal money to control or manage.

Works Cited

Animasahun, R. A., and J. O. Ogunniran. "Correlates of Examination Malpractice Among Secondary School Students in Oyo State, Nigeria." International Journal of Educational Administration and Policy Studies, vol. 6, no. 9, 2014, pp. 181-189, https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TPX7GXUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra

Bianchi, Adriana, and James G. Phillips. "Psychological Predictors of Problem Mobile Phone Use." CyberPsychology & Behavior, vol. 8, no. 1, 2005, pp. 39-51, https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cpb.2005.8.39

Kirschner, Paul A., and Aryn C. Karpinski. "Facebook® And Academic Performance." Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 26, no. 6, 2010, pp. 1237-1245, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563210000646

Meena, Jitendra Kumar, et al. "Mobile Phone Use and Possible Cancer Risk: Current Perspectives in India." Indian Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, vol. 20, no. 1, 2016, p. 5, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4922278/

Philip, Swetha Sara, and Gordon N. Dutton. "Identifying and Characterizing Cerebral Visual Impairment in Children: A Review." Clinical and Experimental Optometry, vol. 97, no. 3, 2014 pp. 196-208, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cxo.12155