The fatal attraction of digital screens

Nilratan Halder

FE Team | Published: May 15, 2026 21:32:05

How much time is too much for children below 17 years of age to spend on digital screens? The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends no screen time for children below two years of age, not more than an hour a day for children aged two to five and less than two hours daily for the age group between five to 17. Australia is the first country to ban social media for children under 16 years of age. A number of countries are considering similar measures. Microsoft-famed Bill Gates did not allow his children to own a smartphone before the age of 14. While his children could use digital devices for schoolwork, he did not allow phones at the dinner table and beyond set bedtime. The idea was to manage screen time and ensure healthy sleeping habit for his children.
How the ordinary mortals in Bangladesh are faring on this score of managing screen time for themselves and crucially their children? A study conducted by the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) finds that children aged six to 14 spend 4.6 hours a day on smartphones, computers, gaming devices and television screens---well above the internationally recommended limit. The study was conducted on 420 students of six schools---three Bangla medium schools and three English medium schools. This is alarming because overexposure to digital devices has its attendant ills for children's physical and mental health.
A similar study on children of village schools including those from remote areas is well in order. Not all village children have access to digital devices because their families cannot afford smartphones or computer but during the Covid-19 pandemic online classes forced many parents to procure such devices. Poor families not affording a smartphone may consider themselves lucky because it may prove a blessing in disguise for their children.
Meanwhile, apart from Dhaka other cities and towns are likely to be similarly plagued by the fatal attraction for digital devices. In Dhaka, more than four out of every five children are found to use digital devices well beyond the recommended limit. In other words, 83 per cent of them are addicted to the screens suffering its adverse consequences on physical and mental health. Their parents are not the ideal persons to discourage the overuse of devices because they themselves spend between four to five hours on screens. Unaware of the ill effects, some parents take help of digital devices to appease toddlers unwilling to eat food or crying for some other reasons. When this continues, there is a risk of developing addiction for devices among such children.
Cooped up in their rooms, children miss their natural instinct for play outside. Playgrounds in this city are conspicuous by their absence. The few there are have structures so unfriendly for playing games that parents do not allow them to venture into those uncongenial spaces. Children must develop a healthy habit of coming in contact with Nature. But the way the education system has been tuned to extensive coaching methods instead of learning in classes, leaves them hardly any time for playing outside. Tired of attending coaching centres one after another, they need diversion of attention or entertainment. There are few parents who accompany them to music or dance classes, debates and recitation programmes.
In the absence of sporting and cultural pursuits, children gradually become withdrawn until they build a cocoon around them. Socialisation turns to be a forbidden affair in their life. Thus they suffer from both physical and mental limitations. The ICDDRB has found how children spending more times on screens are deprived of required sleep and suffer from eye problems, headache and other physical and mental disorders. Obesity is a common problem for the majority of such children. Their current problems may lead to a kind of dystopia.
Apart from all such negative developments, some children get introduced to computer games. That is more dangerous than other problems. Addiction to such games on the screen may change the usual routine of eating, resting and sleeping. It adversely affects their study and even the most talented students can fail examinations. Parents not taking enough care of their sons and daughters have to pay a heavy price for not spending quality time with their growing children. Some games are so dangerous that unsuspecting teenagers are at times tempted to commit suicide.
The digital distribution platforms responsible for making computer games available to children are to blame for promoting violence and prurient contents. Tightening the distribution of such contents is an imperative. Regional lockouts should be used effectively in order to restrict those contents.