Spending A Lot of Time on Your Phone? This Is How Your Child Feels About It

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A global survey revealed that children feel unimportant when their parents spend too much time on their mobile phones.

The survey was done by AVG Technologies and was answered by more than 6,000 children ages 8- to 13-years old from Brazil, Australia, Canada, France, The United Kingdom, Germany, The Czech Republic and the United States.

Results show that 52% of children think their parents spend too much time on their mobile phones. For comparison, 54% of the parents agreed with their children and worried that they were setting a bad example.

The disheartening news is that 32% of the children felt unimportant when their parents used their phones during meal times, conversations, when watching television, and playing outside.

“I do feel like the balance between the degree to which I use my mobile device to stay connected to work and my ability to be more present, available to my family, is quite out of balance,” said one of the parent respondents.

Tony Anscombe, Senior Security Evangelist at AVG Technologies, mentioned another figure to consider. 25% of parents also wished that their child reduced their device usage. With this, he advised parents to lead by example.

“With our kids picking up mobile devices at an increasingly younger age, it is really important that we set good habits within the home, early on,” he said.

“Children take their cues from us for everything else, so it is only natural that they should do the same with device use.”


Sources:
July 2, 2015. "Kids Feel Unimportant to Cell Phone-Addicted Parents". parenting.com
July 1, 2015. "Children Say They Feel Unimportant When Parents Spend Too Much Time Using Smartphones". ischoolguide.com
June 29, 2015. "Kids Feel Unimportant when Parents are Distracted by Technology". educationnews.org