How Parent’s Smartphone Usage Impacts Their Children

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Recommended: Risks and consequences of children with mobile phones

This type of tunnel vision is precisely what happened to Ms. Habibah Abdul-Hakeem. While Abdul-Hakeem was babysitting a friend’s two year old child, the child sat on the edge of the pool and fell in. The child quickly sank to the bottom of the pool, going completely unnoticed by Abdul-Hakeem. According to video captured by the security cameras, she was too absorbed with her Smartphone, texting and sending pictures to a friend, to notice the child. It is only when she accidentally dropped her phone that she finally looked up and noticed that the child was drowning. In the statement given to the paramedics immediately following the incident, Abdul-Hakeem stated she believed her eyes had only been off the child “for about twenty seconds”. In actuality, approximately three minutes time had elapsed since she had last looked up from her Smartphone, during which the child was drowning (Worthen). The distraction from a Smartphone quickly resulted in a complete disregard for the safety and wellbeing of this child and while this situation was unintentional, it was also entirely preventable. The child in this example was extremely fortune and did survive the incident however, that is often not the case. In spite of the widely shared opinion that when more attention is given to a Smartphone than a child the probability of negative impact is highly foreseeable, parents obsessive behavior with their Smartphone does not change. Even with the awareness of potential harm, many parents admit that they struggle with the very thought of not having their Smartphone on hand at all times, even if this means ignoring their child (O'Keeffe). Among the more popular of justifications given for this is that their Smartphones provide them with the ability ... ... middle of paper ... ...t Smartphone." NPR. NPR, 10 Mar. 2014. Web. 26 Apr. 2014. O'Keeffe, Alice. "Squeezed Middle." New Statesman 142.5183 (2013): 64-65. Academic Search Premier. Web. 26 Apr. 2014 Smith, Aaron. "Smartphone Ownership 2013." Pew Research Internet Project. Pew Research Centers, 5 June 2013. Web. 26 Apr. 2014. Strayer, David. "Hands-Free Talking, Texting Are Unsafe." University of Utah News. University Of Utah Public Relations, 12 June 2013. Web. 26 Apr. 2014. Tarkan, Laurie. "Is Your Smartphone Ruining Your Creativity?" Fox News. FOX News Network, 15 Sept. 2011. Web. 26 Apr. 2014. "When Smartphone Is Near, Parenting May Falter: MedlinePlus." U.S National Library of Medicine. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 10 Mar. 2014. Web. 26 Apr. 2014. Worthen, Ben. "The Perils of Texting While Parenting." The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company, 29 Sept. 2012. Web. 26 Apr. 2014.

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