Can babies become addicted to tablet computers???

Experts say YES! The youngest known patient being treated in the UK is a four-year-old girl. Her parents enrolled her for compulsive behaviour therapy after she became increasingly “distressed and inconsolable” when the iPad was taken away from her. Her use of the device had escalated over the course of a year and she had become addicted to using it up for to four hours a day.  Experts have warned that parents who allow babies and toddlers to access tablet computers for several hours a day are in danger of causing “dangerous” long term effects.Children as young as four are becoming so addicted to smartphones and iPads that they require psychological treatment.

Children have access to the internet almost from birth now. They see their parents playing on their mobile devices and they want to play too. It's difficult, because having a device can also be very useful in terms of having a reward, having a pacifier. But if you don't get the balance right it can be very dangerous. They can't cope and become addicted, reacting with tantrums and uncontrollable behaviour when they are taken away. Then as they grow older, the problem only gets worse. Even the most shy kids, when they hit their teens, suddenly want to become sociable and popular.

A recent survey revealed that one in seven of more than 1,000 parents admitted that they let their young children use the gadgets for four or more hours a day. Given that babies between 3-12 months are awake for only around 10 hours per day this is a huge proportion of their waking day. Too bad although a large % of  users felt that children today spend too much time on smart devices, it hasn’t put most of them off using them to entertain their baby.