“My daughter won’t eat unless she’s watching YouTube." “My son screams if I take the phone away." “He’s quiet for hours — but only with a screen in hand."

These aren’t one-off cases. These are everyday stories now — whispered by anxious parents at school gates, typed hesitantly into parenting forums, and confessed late at night when the guilt gets too loud.

In homes across India, a quiet crisis is brewing — children as young as eight are sliding into mobile dependency, and most of us don’t know how to respond.

What’s most worrying is not that children are using phones — it’s that no one is talking about how much, how early, and how dangerously it’s beginning to affect their development. We’ve normalised it so quickly. We pat ourselves on the back when toddlers swipe through YouTube or open gaming apps with ease, calling them “digital natives" — without pausing to ask: are they emotionally ready for the endless scroll?

The truth........

© News18