• Smartphone and screen addiction have been under recent discussion.

• The addiction can be as detrimental as psychoactive drugs.

• We can assist our youth with techniques to cope with these challenges.

Smartphone and screen addiction affect the younger generations in particular.

There are many recent articles about smartphone addiction. One such article on Wikipedia is entitled, “Mobile phone overuse.’ It outlines many social, health and psychological effects.

I remember travelling on the rapid transit system in Singapore a few years ago. They have over 3 million daily passengers travelling on their system. I noted the high percentage of the riders using their smartphones. This was a sign of what was coming.

This practice will not diminish. There are more technologies emerging. They will only add to the challenge. A good example will likely be virtual reality.

Studies point out that this behaviour is much like the abuse of psychoactive drugs. The validation we get from social media acts as a dopamine and oxytocin trigger. This is similar to the effects of drugs.

Researchers monitored students in 10 countries. They tried to go without their phones for 24 hours. The majority of students experienced distress.

Here are a few steps that they can take.

• get them to specify an amount of time to play games, etc.

• when not in use, put the devices away somewhere, not out in the open;

• have then hang out with friends but without their phones;

• join a club;

• read books;

• do other activities.

Faced by overuse of social media, we can encourage our youngsters to learn to manage these challenges. We can discuss other options to assist them.