Today, smartphones have become such an important part of our lives -- so much so that it has let us ignore the people closest to our hearts, putting us in a separate bubble of our own.
We know that kids on smartphones get disconnected from their parents, however, a recent study has revealed what happens when parents are the ones obsessed with their phones.
A study conducted by a group of Chinese researchers Xiaochun Xie and JulanXie (published in Journal of Adolescence) has revealed that parents who ignore their kids and are engrossed in their smartphones instead may be putting their offspring at risk of depression.
Researchers studied 530 students with age ranging from 10 to 18 years to see if they were victims of parental phubbing -- a fusion of the terms phone and snubbing -- basically meaning ignored by giving the phone a preference.
One simple way to denote if you're phubbing is by noticing how you keep your smartphone. If you keep it's screen facing right towards you, waiting for message or notification to pop-up, you're phubbing.
Kids were given two questionnaires where they had to rate their parent's smartphone use from 1 (being never) to 5 (every time).
For instance, one question asked, 'During a typical mealtime with my parents, my parents pull out and check their cellphones'.
The second questionnaire was to assess a child's mental health and analyse their depression levels. They asked them 20 questions and asked them to rank their depression levels from 1 (not at all) to 4 (a lot).
After assessing the data, researchers found a striking yet expected correlation. As per the results, the more time a parent spends on their gadgets when he/she is around the kids, the more likely they are to develop depression.
Kids felt rejected and felt less love and warmth as parents obsessively looked at their screens.
It is strongly advised that parents, either while eating or while spending family time such as playing board games, turn it into a disconnected zone with no digital devices allowed, in order to connect with each other better while encouraging better tech habits.