A group of public administration students walked into schools across Pulwama district on June 13 expecting to measure a habit. What they documented instead was a household under siege.

The survey, conducted by students at Amar Singh College under the guidance of Dr. Zubair Nazeer Malik, head of the public administration department, set out to study what researchers call “technoference”, the way digital devices intrude on family life. 

The method was simple: sit down with students in grades eight through ten, ages 13 to 15, and ask them to describe what phones have done to their homes. 

The findings should alarm anyone who assumes a smartphone is a neutral object sitting on a kitchen table.

Start with the baseline. 

Some 91.3 percent of the students surveyed use mobile phones regularly. That figure alone surprises no one who has watched a teenager anywhere in the world. What follows does.

Investigators found that 21.4 percent of students said their fathers hit them for extended phone use, regardless of whether homework and chores had been finished. 

Punishment, in these homes, has stopped tracking behaviour. 

A child can meet obligations completely and still be struck, because the........

© Kashmir Observer