Dear Editor, As the world is changing steadily and heading towards introducing new technologies and innovations each year, Indian youth is destroying itself using mobile apps and by spending excessive time making videos and playing games on them. It is disturbing to see them glued to these gadgets even during these hard times, but their long debilitating sprees on mobiles render them sluggish and weaken their eyesight and health as well. They must use such platforms to entertain and edify people to raise spirit of loving one’s country, its historical places and especially its heroes who had sacrificed themselves to give them this nation and liberty, because a large majority belonging to the fraternity does not know about country’s past history. The tradition of online classes has forced students to take their classes on laptops and mobile phones as rising cases of coronavirus have forced the Government to close educational institutions. For the time being, it’s common to see adolescents wearing glasses but if we go back to early 90s, there were no smart-phones, no laptops etc and it was rare to find juveniles wearing glasses. If you look at your surroundings, you will find that every fifth person is a having a poor eye-sight. Such cases have escalated in many ways within last few years. Students’ indulgence in mobile phones, online classes and their watching movies on televisions are the main reasons for this sorry state of affairs. Instead of bringing awareness and prosperity into lives of people with the help of these appliances, students no matter which class they belong to misuse them. Our county’s literacy rate is extremely low in comparison with other countries especially in the case of girls it is abysmally low. Many juveniles have lost their lives by falling onto train tracks and off the roofs and killing their elders when restricted not to play such games and are still losing because they select tricky places for making videos and put their lives in danger. Parents must discourage and try hard to wean their children away from mobile phones until they complete their studies. The hazards of excessive use of mobile phones causes DNA damage, sleeplessness, eye cancer, infertility and cardiac problems. Last but not least, prima facie the Government needs to make a policy in which time-restriction mode should be framed after 2 hours usage, on daily basis, to save our youth and country from more crises. Mool Raj, Doda.
