Phone addiction in children ‘is causing anxiety epidemic’

A GENERATION is facing into an anxiety epidemic due to smartphone addiction, a mental health expert has warned.

Dr Harry Barry says more and more young people are being treated for ‘Facebook depression’ due to the fallout of not being ‘liked’ enough online.

Dr Barry, a long-time critic of smartphone use by young children, is calling for a ban on the sale of such devices to all children under the age of 14.

‘There is an increasing anxiety epidemic in this country,’ Dr Barry told the Irish Daily Mail. ‘That’s what all the principals are telling me all over the country. Kids are getting more and more anxious.

‘We need to ask, why, what has changed? The reason is that these kids are spending more and more time on their phones and less time face to face. Once you start going down the road of social media in particular, you are getting into the world of “rating”.

‘The secret to the anxiety epidemic is the word “rating”. It’s in terms of the young person comparing their lives to the lives of their peers.’

The comments come as the Government comes under growing pressure to establish a Digital Safety Commissioner to police the internet.

Plans to formulate such a role had been shelved by the Taoiseach before Christmas. However, this week, his Communications Minister Denis Naughten said he knew nothing of the move to scrap the initiative – which has been promised since last February.

A spokesman for Mr Naughten said he was ‘still exploring’ the establishment of a commissioner and was not aware of any plans to shelve the proposal.

Last week, an Irish Daily Mail/Ireland Thinks poll revealed that more than two thirds of Irish people support calls for a ban on smartphone ownership for children under the age of 16. ‘There is a direct link with all of this [depression and anxiety] and the smartphone,’ says Dr Barry.

‘We know that there is an increased incidence of “Facebook depression” among girls. These are girls who are depressed because their page isn’t being visited as much as others and it’s getting them down. If they have a tendency towards depression at all... and they begin to feel that others don’t rate them, they feel down about themselves. It is the 12-13 up to 17-18 that is the group that is primarily at this. However, we are seeing and hearing now that kids are watching stuff from the age of nine. They are getting smartphones from nine and their developing brains can’t cope with the barrage of information they are being exposed to.’ Last night, Dr Barry called on the Government to urgently legislate on the issue. ‘I think there should be a legislative instruction that you can’t sell a full-blown smartphone to a child under 14 full stop,’ he said.

‘I believe the smartphone is robbing children of their childhood. We all need time to learn and grow and develop into young adults and I think they are being robbed of this time. This idea that, “oh such and such’s child has one” is a big problem. If we had some legislative policy, then that would be the rule for everyone.’

Explaining why he felt the age of 14 was so significant, Dr Barry said experts believed the adolescent brain was really only starting to be pruned at the age of 13.

He added: ‘They are heading into a fairly unstable period... There is a feeling that under... 14, and even, in some parts of Europe, experts feel it should be 16... their brains aren’t mature enough to deal with what they’re exposed to.’

IN recent days, we have highlighted the dangers posed to children on their smartphones, including the risk of being targeted by paedophiles, and the threats to their physical health.

Today we tell of the short- and long-term mental repercussions of smartphone usage by the young. Among them are increased anxiety and what has become known as ‘Facebook depression’, suffered when children don’t get enough ‘likes’ for their posts on the social media platform.

It is quite clear that smartphone usage is wreaking mental and emotional havoc on children up and down the country. If a new medicine, a new drink or a new snack bar were having the same effect, it would be banned immediately.

If we do not act decisively, and soon, to ban the sale of smartphones to under-16s, we are creating a mental health time bomb we will live to regret.