A survey of 10,000 rural left-behind children by Wuhan University showed that nearly 70% of children watch short videos on their mobile phones, and one third play games
Mobile phone addiction has spawned "new problem teenagers" in rural areas
Just after the Spring Festival, the topic of teenagers' addiction to smartphones has once again attracted attention.
The research group of Associate Professor Xia Zhuzhi from the China Rural Governance Research Center of Wuhan University focused on left-behind children in rural areas.
Not long ago, the research group released a report showing that in the surveyed central provinces, 90% of left-behind children in rural areas use their own mobile phones or the mobile phones of their elders for a long time to play. One is used to play mobile games.
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"In rural areas, some left-behind children in primary and secondary schools go home after vacation, 'staring at their mobile phones' has become the norm. Indulging in mobile phones has seriously affected their physical and mental health, and some children have faced 'both mental and physical shocks' for this." The research group calls on the government to make active interventions and prevent severe mobile phone addiction a top priority in the work of caring for and serving left-behind children.
Addicted to mobile phones, the younger age "seems to have fallen into the mobile phone"
Since 2021, Xia Zhuzhi's research team has gone to 10 counties (districts) in Henan, Hubei, Hunan, and Jiangxi provinces to conduct special research.
The survey shows that in the rural areas of central provinces, the proportion of left-behind children is relatively high, some accounting for more than 50%. Schools and parents generally report that it is difficult to manage mobile phones, and it is very difficult to manage the use of mobile phones by left-behind children.
The research group conducted a questionnaire survey on the management of left-behind children's mobile phones for parents of primary and middle school students in Henan, Hubei, and Hunan provinces and nine counties (referred to as "three provinces survey"), and a total of 13,172 valid questionnaires were collected.
According to the survey, 40.4% of left-behind children have their own mobile phones, and 49.3% of left-behind children use their elders' mobile phones.
Watching short videos and playing games have become the main online entertainment methods for left-behind children, accounting for 69% and 33.1% respectively.
At the same time, 67.3% of the parents believe that their children are becoming addicted to mobile phones, and 21.3% of them believe that their children are "seriously addicted to mobile phones, and the situation is very serious."
The survey titled "Investigation on Mobile Phone Addiction of Left-behind Children in Rural Areas and Countermeasures" pointed out that the increase in mobile phone time and earlier access to the Internet is "intensifying" among left-behind children.
When the research team investigated a township middle school in Guizhou, they found that some left-behind children stayed up for 5 days and 5 nights in order to play games.
According to data obtained by a sixth-grade teacher in a county in Jiangxi Province, more than half of the students in the class play mobile phones for more than 10 hours at home on weekends.
Xia Zhuzhi's hometown is located in a mountain village in the eastern part of Hubei.
To his surprise, during a visit, a left-behind child who was still in the sixth grade of elementary school had already started playing mobile phones "all night".
A local elementary school teacher reported that during the holidays, many male students gathered together to play mobile games until two or three in the morning, and then got up the next day to continue playing.
The research team conducted class statistics in some rural primary and secondary schools in Hunan and Hubei and found that almost no students "have never been exposed to mobile games", and more than 50% of them play for more than two hours a day.
"10-15 years old is a dangerous age group for left-behind children to be addicted to mobile phones, mainly students from the fourth grade of elementary school to the third grade of junior high school." Xia Zhuzhi introduced.
At the same time, the phenomenon of being addicted to mobile phones is becoming younger.
In Fenglin Town, Yangxin County, Hubei Province, the research team visited the local home and saw a 5-year-old child in this family who had been staring at the mobile phone screen playing games.
When asked which games he was good at, he enthusiastically showed the 6 game apps on his mobile phone.
In some rural areas, the research team often sees that children aged four or five can also proficiently download and operate mobile games, or keep swiping the screen to watch short videos. very low."
Some interviewed parents told the research group that nowadays in rural areas, smartphones are extremely attractive to children. As long as there is Wifi (wireless network) at home, children can get home from school with their mobile phones and can go out of the door. into the phone."
"Game master" is more popular than "study top"
According to Xia Zhuzhi's observation, in the past five years, left-behind children have become more and more addicted to mobile phones.
"The first is the rapid development of the Internet, and it is becoming more and more convenient to surf the Internet in the vast rural areas." Xia Zhuzhi noticed that in his hometown, there were not many people who installed wireless networks in the past. "play cell phone.
In recent years, in some villages, almost every household has installed wireless networks, and it is difficult for left-behind children not to use the Internet.
The second is the absence of family management, resulting in left-behind children using mobile phones for a long time.
The survey found that most of the grandparents in these families do not have the ability or awareness to guide the left-behind grandchildren to use mobile phones correctly.
In rural areas, some elderly people need to do farm work or other work, and it is difficult to take care of their grandchildren all the time.
Some elderly people use mobile phones as "electronic nanny" for their grandchildren, lacking awareness of the possible harm caused by their grandchildren's addiction to mobile phones.
"I really don't know whether I was right or wrong when I advocated installing Wi-Fi at home." In a mountain village in western Hubei, 66-year-old Cai Kaimei (pseudonym) was lost.
Cai Kaimei's son and daughter-in-law are migrant workers all year round. After the birth of their grandson in 2006, they have been living with her and his wife.
Before 2018, there was no Wi-Fi at home, so the grandson took his mobile phone to play games at his cousin's house with Internet access.
Worried about causing inconvenience to relatives, she also installed Wi-Fi in her house. Since then, her grandson has been playing with mobile phones at home during the holidays, and often rushes to catch up with homework when school is about to start.
The grandson played on his mobile phone until one or two in the morning. If he couldn’t get up in the morning, the old man would bring breakfast to the bedside. During lunch and dinner, the grandson continued to play games while eating.
"In this day and age, other children are playing with mobile phones, and we, as grandparents, can't control him if he wants to play with them. Nowadays, children are sensitive, and we don't dare to care too much. If something happens, we, as old people, can't control it. I can't bear it in my heart." Cai Kaimei said frankly.
In a township in Miluo City, Hunan Province, an old man with his grandson told the research team that there is video surveillance installed in his home. Once the child cries, "the daughter-in-law will intervene. If the grandson complains to his mother, things will become complicated. We The hard work for the grandson will not be reflected, and conflicts will arise."
"Parents can discipline their children, but grandparents often can't do it. In addition, grandparents are 'intergenerational relatives'. When grandchildren behave improperly, grandparents tend to compromise or indulge." Xia Zhuzhi analyzed that it is precisely these reasons that Left-behind children who lack restraint are more unscrupulous in swimming in the Internet.
In addition, group demonstrations from peers have also led to "playing with mobile phones" becoming a "new trend" among left-behind children.
"In order to be able to get along with the group, most of the left-behind children will pay special attention to the things that their peers care about." A psychology teacher at a school in a county in Henan Province told the research team that when a field test was conducted on what the students liked, the boys in the class answered in unison: " game".
According to some interviewed teachers, boys like to discuss mobile games when they get together.
The research team found that, unlike 20 or 30 years ago, in some rural primary and secondary schools today, the "big cows" among their peers are no longer "top learners" but "game masters", that is, they have superb game skills or have many rare games. equipped students.
Mobile phone addiction leads to physical decline and other problems
What makes Cai Kaimei helpless is that because of his addiction to mobile phones, his grandson, who was at the top of his class in elementary school and the family placed high hopes on him, suffered a decline in his academic performance and only passed the local ordinary high school in the senior high school entrance examination.
This Spring Festival, my grandson, who is already in the second year of high school, still plays with his mobile phone until late at night every day, and only catches up with winter homework when the school starts.
"I don't exercise, and I don't like to visit relatives. When asked by adults to go to New Year's greetings, I also bring my mobile phone to play. He doesn't go to the nearby scenic spots with the whole family. He just wants to stay at home and play with his mobile phone."
This is exactly the same as Xia Zhuzhi's observation in his hometown in eastern Hubei.
During the Spring Festival, Xia Zhuzhi went to pay New Year's greetings, and the teenage children of relatives stayed in the bedroom and played with their mobile phones all the time, "not coming out to meet guests."
"The harm of mobile phone addiction to left-behind children is multifaceted, and some children's physical fitness has declined." The research team learned that a middle school in a county in Hubei had a routine physical examination in 2021. 30% of the students in the first grade showed severe poor vision, In a class of the third grade, two-thirds of the students wear glasses.
In the nearby elementary school, it is not new for students to have five or six hundred degrees of myopia.
Accompanied by the decline in physical strength of students.
The physical education class in this class organizes students to do two pull-ups at most, but generally they can't pull up one of them, "basically they don't have much arm strength."
It is worth noting that the research team believes that mobile games contain violence, and some short videos contain soft pornography and other undesirable content, which will cause serious psychological problems to left-behind children.
The research team learned that in a mountainous county in central China, there have been two extreme cases of students committing suicide by jumping off a building because their mobile phones were confiscated in the past three years.
In a township primary school in Miluo, Hunan, a third-grade teacher told the research team that a female student used her grandparents’ mobile phone to send messages to her migrant mother, threatening to “suicide” if she didn’t buy her a mobile phone.
The mother rushed home to deal with the matter, and then had to send the child to treatment for Internet addiction, and stayed at home to take care of her.
"Under the dominance of the Internet, the social interactions and values of left-behind children are also partially derived from the Internet." The research team found that the entertainment and gamification of values promoted on the Internet, such as life is too short to be happy in time, and materialism is the pursuit of money and comparisons. "Three views" of left-behind children.
"In their view, everything said on the Internet is correct, and teachers and parents in reality don't understand anything."
A junior high school teacher in a county in Hubei introduced to the research group that some students built an "online confession wall" through their mobile phones. "This has contributed to the trend of puppy love to a certain extent."
Staying up late to play with mobile phones during the holidays and lack of energy when going to school have become the "normal" of some students in the classrooms of some rural primary and secondary schools.
"Resisting normal classroom learning, a few people even give up on themselves." According to the survey of the research group, 58.5% of parents believe that mobile phones have a negative impact on academic performance, and 22.6% of parents think that the negative impact is serious.
Many teachers reported to the research group that the learning status of many students is "going home on weekends for two days, dozing off at school, and 'goofing around' for five days, with no intention of learning, which has a serious impact on teaching effectiveness."
Yi Zhuo, a member of the research team, analyzed that this aspect is related to mobile phone addiction taking up a large amount of extracurricular time of left-behind children, inattentively completing homework, and affecting classroom efficiency. It is also related to "weakening students' self-motivation and learning interest."
"Compared to academic tasks that require patience and complex logical thinking, mobile games or short videos can give people an immediate psychological satisfaction, sense of recreation, and sense of acquisition by adding stickiness and algorithm recommendations, so that children I am even more unwilling to spend more time on study.”
In a key high school in Yangxin County, Hubei Province, Xia Zhuzhi learned that a student had entered the school with excellent grades and became obsessed with mobile games during the online class during the epidemic in the spring of 2020. After returning to school, he had to drop out because he could not adapt to the classroom again.
In a village in Jingmen City, Hubei Province, a member of the research team was also worried when talking about the post-00s cousin.
"Every time I see her, she is fascinated by her mobile phone, playing with her mobile phone wherever she goes, and she doesn't pay attention to her studies at all." Her parents suggested that she study medicine and take the doctor's qualification certificate in the future, but she thought it was too hard to learn.
"Great youths are addicted to mobile phones, the government and all parties in society urgently need to pay attention to these 'new problem teenagers' in rural areas." The research team member said.
China Youth Daily China Youth Daily reporter Zhu Juanjuan Lei Yu Source: China Youth Daily