Average display utilization of greater than six hours a day is taken into account extreme and may result in stress, anxiousness, sleep disruption, and diminished social interplay, specialists stated at a webinar organised by The Hindu on Saturday (April 25, 2026).
Advertisement
Advertisement
At the webinar titled ‘Impact of Screen Time on the Mental Health of Adults and Children’, Maria Antony, advisor psychiatrist at Sri Mamallan Hospital, Kancheepuram, and Ashwini Tadpatrikar, assistant professor of psychology at Vidyashilp University, Bengaluru, mentioned the psychological and behavioural results of extreme digital publicity.
Ms. Tadpatrikar outlined how display use might shift from wholesome to problematic and addictive patterns, marked by lack of management, compulsive utilization, and destructive penalties on psychological, bodily, and social well-being, together with eye pressure, temper adjustments, and cognitive points.
She burdened the necessity for digital hygiene by way of common breaks, bodily exercise, aware utilization, and household engagement, together with practices comparable to digital fasting and setting screen-time limits to advertise more healthy existence and general well-being.
On breaking screen-use habits amongst youngsters, Ms. Tadpatrikar stated it needs to be accomplished steadily somewhat than forcefully taking away devices. “It takes time to break habits just as much as it does to form them,” she stated.
Dr. Antony stated the channel of communication between mother and father and youngsters ought to stay as open as potential, in order that even when a toddler was uncovered to disagreeable experiences on social media, they might really feel comfy sharing them with the household. She additionally highlighted the position of social media platforms and their algorithms in retaining customers engaged, and thereby selling addictive utilization.
Dr. Antony stated policymakers ought to contemplate introducing rules to handle this problem and prompt that legal guidelines ought to require social media platforms to incorporate in-built reminders to stop customers from doomscrolling for extended intervals.
The session was moderated by Geetha Srimathi, Senior Reporter at The Hindu.