If your child or teenager is showing signs of being a loner, is your broadband connection at fault?
Excessive use of the Internet by adolescents may be exposing children in the 8-18 age group to the risk of social isolation, insomnia and obesity, says a survey by industry chamber Assocham.
The survey, conducted across 10 major Indian cities with a sample size of 1,500 regular Internet users, found over half of them spent more than five hours a day on the Net.
A key factor of worry was that as much as 52 per cent of children in the 8-11 age group were in the usage category classified as “excessive”, denoting usage for 5 hours or more.
“This trend is emerging mostly in metros where normally both the parents are employed,” D.S. Rawat, Assocham’s secretary, said in a statement.
Common online activities include home-work, online games, emails, real-time chat and social networking.
Boys were more addicted to the Web than girls. The study, based on interviews by Assocham’s Social Development Foundation, identified a lack of supervision at home and a feeling of inferiority among children perceived as getting poor grades among factors increasing Internet usage.