Picture this scenario: a mother and her baby, who does not stop crying; instead of calming the

infant in a natural, careful way, the mother decides to hand out her phone playing random
videos. Does it sound familiar? Phone usage has become quite a common custom in our daily
life. Phones are being used by all generations, even toddlers and children. Since there are
different causes why kids use phones more often these days, there are positive and negative
effects which must be taken into account.

There are plenty of reasons why children are used to utilizing smartphones. First of all, the
current pandemic has changed everyone’s life, and children are in the need of developing their
education and knowledge. Smartphones have granted children access to their school programs
and keeping up with their socializing in a virtual class. In addition, in order to avoid the
sensation of loneliness during quarantine, most children have found in their phone devices a
good method on how to stay in touch with friends through social media and recreational apps.
Smartphones have been of great help throughout the tough times we have been living in.

Nevertheless, it is valid to state the various effects that using smartphones has in youngsters.
On the one hand, children have learned to develop a good ability at using technology. Most of
them have grown at being knowledgeable when it comes to networks and online access. On
the contrary, a couple of negatives repercussions should as well be mentioned. The first one is
in the field of information fatigue, due to the quantity of assignments and projects young
students must handle at home, leading to potential cases of stress. Besides, children are
growing with a not-so-ideal notion that it is fine to use smartphones to solve every-day
problems, undermining critical thinking and the way of staying in contact with the real world
such as the case mentioned at the beginning of this article.

Smartphones can be considered either a helpful tool or a devious gadget, depending on how
the application of the device is oriented. Whether smartphone usage will increase or diminish
in the upcoming times remains uncertain. Nonetheless, there is one statement that should be
remembered: It dawns on us how we want to guide and shape our future generations and how
“connected” we want them to grow.

KRVT