Warning about children having mental disorders due to excessive use of phones and internet

Many children have Tic disorders.

Recently, Nghe An Mental Hospital has received many patients with mental illness.DisorderTic (Tic Disoder) came for examination and treatment. The patients were all under 18 years old, usually falling into 2 age groups: 5-6 years old and 11-12 years old. When coming for examination, patients often had one of the following symptoms: blinking, wrinkling nose, shrugging shoulders, frowning forehead, shaking head, jerking jaw muscles or clicking tongue, sighing, coughing, mumbling, clearing throat, screaming... some patients even had many of the above symptoms.

Ms. TTH - mother of NVT (12 years old, in Vinh city) said: Recently, when playing with our child, my husband and I discovered that he had strange symptoms such as often blinking and twitching one eye involuntarily. My husband and I were very worried so we took our child to the doctor and were told that he had a Tic disorder and were referred to the Mental Hospital for examination and treatment. Here, the doctor explained clearly, prescribed medicine, and sent us home for treatment. I really regret that my husband and I have not paid much attention to our child in the past, and left him alone with his phone. At home, he often turns on his phone to play video games and watch TikTok.

According to doctors at Nghe An Mental Hospital: Tic disorder is an abnormal movement of the muscles, repeated uncontrollably. If it occurs in the motor muscles, it is called a motor Tic; if it occurs in the respiratory muscles, it is called a vocal Tic.... Actually, this is a benign disease, common in children, about 20% of school-age children have this disorder. This syndrome often occurs in children under 18 years old. The frequency, intensity and duration of Tic in each child is different. About 65% of children with Tic will recover after 1 year, especially when entering puberty. However, about 35% of children with Tic need treatment.

Simple motor tics include eye blinking, nose scrunching, shoulder shrugging, head shaking, and jaw jerking. Complex motor tics include self-slapping, self-biting, jumping, stomping, and spinning. Simple vocal tics include sighing, coughing, grunting, tongue clicking, throat clearing, and screaming. Complex vocal tics include saying repetitive words or sentences that are out of context… There are also mixed motor and vocal tics.

Doctor Nguyen Duc Tai - Nghe An Mental Hospital said: In fact, in the present era, there are many children with Tic disorders. However, children with Tic are only taken to the doctor by their parents when they discover that they have Tic in the eyes and Tic has affected their learning... It is difficult to determine the specific cause of Tic in children, but in general, it is due to both genetic and environmental factors. Environmental factors can be due to substance disorders; stress and domestic violence; the effects of watching TV, phones, iPads, or playing video games too much. Watching TV, phones, iPads, or playing video games too much will cause children to be stimulated, stressed, causing Tic to appear, increase, and last longer. If this condition is stopped, Tic will decrease.

Children with Tic disorder need to be detected and treated early because if this condition persists and worsens, it will cause children to suffer psychological consequences due to being teased by friends and poor academic performance. Treatment for children with Tic disorder is not too complicated when medicine has many proven effective treatment methods and therapies, including drug therapy, psychological therapy; "quitting" watching TV, phones, iPads, and playing video games.

Be careful with TVs, phones, and iPads connected to the internet.

According to Dr. Le Van Binh - Deputy Head of Neurology Department, Nghe An General Hospital: Tic disorder has been recorded in medical history when technology was not yet developed. However, in the past 5 years, Tic has appeared more often. Children with Tic disorder are often due to parents being too busy, not having time to take care of their children, letting their children watch TV, internet, play games, play iPad... too much.

In fact, Tic disorder is not too worrying. What is more worrying are the diseases that often accompany Tic, co-occurring mental disorders such asADHD, compulsive disorder, language disorder, activity disorder... These mental disorders are not only caused by genetic factors, but also watching too much TV, phone, iPad connected to the internet (internet disorder) is the factor that causes the disease to start and worsen.

When children suffer from internet disorders or mental disorders, their learning will be significantly worse, and school pressure will make them feel inferior and not want to go to school. At the same time, children will also lack activity, have poor communication skills, and have difficulty establishing social relationships and handling situations. All of these factors will become psychological sequelae that make it difficult for children to develop themselves, gradually becoming a social burden in the future - Dr. Le Van Binh clearly stated.

The symptoms of children with the above mental disorders are often easy to recognize and so is internet disorder. Internet disorder is manifested in the increasing time children spend on TV, phones, iPads connected to the internet; children stay up late continuously and often demand, are irritable, frustrated, and uncomfortable when isolated from TV, phones, iPads connected to the internet... Treatment of internet disorder and mental disorders related to internet disorder is very difficult. In which, drug therapy is not dominant. Psychological therapy, changing habits, separating children from the internet environment, reducing children's study pressure, and reducing stress in the family are the main factors. This requires the efforts of the patient's family.

From a medical perspective, in addition to internet disorders, children's excessive use of TVs, phones, and iPads connected to the internet also causes many health problems, both physical and mental. Many injuries are difficult to recover from, affecting their entire lives. These injuries include: Permanent or difficult-to-treat eye-related diseases, including eye twitching, itching and redness, difficulty focusing on something, tired or blurred eyes; neck pain, cervical spondylosis, cervical spondylosis, increased rate of hunchback, scoliosis; damage to the thumb joint; increased risk of infection due to weakened body and virus infection on phones and computers; mobile phone radiation can reduce sperm count, causing infertility in men; sleep disorders, prolonged headaches, depression...

Doctor Nguyen Duc Tai also pointed out a fact: Separating children from the Internet environment is not necessarily right when using the Internet is a trend of the times. The advantages and disadvantages go hand in hand. The problem is how parents should consider and guide their children to use the Internet.

First, parents should not let children under 2 years old use TVs, phones, computers, iPads connected to the Internet. Second, when children use them, there must be an adult nearby. Parents should watch and explain, interact with the children, instead of letting them interact with the device only. Third, when children use them, they need to use them actively, not passively. Fourth, every 30-45 minutes children use the device, they need to rest for 15 minutes. They should use it twice a day. Finally, when children are found to have disorders, they need to stop using the device immediately or reduce the time of use to a minimum.

Prevention is better than cure. Once risk factors have been identified, families need to immediately stop “relying” on phones, iPads, and internet-connected TVs to coax and look after their children. Depending on their conditions, families should let their children participate in cultural, artistic, sports, community activities, and experience them appropriately./.