A medical doctor in Kano State, Dr Tijjani Haruna, has attributed poor academic performance among some students to phone addiction. Haruna, who is working with the Mohammed Abdullahi Wase Specialist Hospital, Kano, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Kano on Sunday.According to him, the ugly trend can make users prone to obesity, lack of concentration and other diseases.
He said that schools and the family have an important role to play in checking the ugly trend by preventing children from using mobile phones from childhood before they become addicted to it.
Some parents in Kano have also expressed concern over the addiction of youths in the use of smartphones, describing the menace as “disturbing and dangerous to their health”.
In separate interviews with NAN, they condemned the actions of most of the youths in the state addicted to cell phones.
Malam Ali Sadiq, a parent, lamented that “most of the youths who are in the age bracket of 18 to 35 years are addicted to smartphones, while few of them who are outside of this age bracket are also in the habit of using mobile phones anywhere they find themselves”.
Sadiq appealed to parents and other stakeholders in the state to educate their children about the dangers associated with persistent use of cell phones.
Another parent, Mrs Maimuna Bala, also expressed dismay over the “ugly trend” seriously distracting their studies and other activities.
“Many parents are out of touch with the dangers faced by their children on tablets and smartphones,” she said.
Mr Gabriel Adekoya, another parent, also said that youths between the ages of 18 and 30 in the area are the most affected because they over concentrate to their smartphones anywhere they go.
“Our youths nowadays are always glued to their phones, tapping away on WhatsApp, posting selfies or scrolling YouTube for the latest videos, some of them hardly relate directly with real people around them because of addiction,” Adekoya said.
Mr Abass Yusuf, an Electronics engineer in the city, said that you hardly see people ranging from youths and even some old people in the society without smartphones irrespective of the dangers of using such gadgets.
“These smartphones come with social media applications like Whatsapp and Facebook, people hardly spend half of the day without going through messages sent to them via Whatsapp and Facebook.
“The most annoying thing is people over concentrate by surfing through their smartphones while at places of work, eateries or places of worship,” Yusuf said.
Source: Punch
