It takes a whole village to raise a child

Ours is a cognitive problem that we gravitate towards pointing out the problem and its fallout but never bother to offer ways to solve it. Whenever children's issues of studies and health come under the radar at informal meetings and hangouts, all of us exonerate ourselves by putting all the blame on the unbitted and unmonitored recourse to the use of digital screen. It's not acceptable for children to go cold turkey on their digital buddy – mobile phone – which always unfailingly offers them company in their loneliness.

Of the questions left untreated of in my last article, the first one that pops up in our minds in the moments of self-accountability is: who is responsible for children's loneliness? The second is: have we ever thought of searching for any alternative source of companionship and entertainment for children?

Parents' preoccupation with the monetary woes has left them with little time to interact with their children. The procurement of financial assets is reckoned as the guarantor of a secure future as capitalistic pursuits have made emotional investment outdated and redundant.

Unless children are provided with comparatively less harmful and more engaging activities, all efforts to wean them off addictive digital absorbers are bound to end in smoke because the efforts are infertile in their throttle. The revival of indoor games with parents as participants can help children shake off the saccharine addiction of digital screen.

Lack of space and opportunities for outdoor activities have pushed our children to the dark world of digital gadgets. Poor town planning doesn't facilitate children and families with space and infrastructure required for physical and mental engagement for holistic health. Threatening law and order situations with menacingly rocketing street crimes have squeezed the world around our children. Moreover, the cult of modernistic persona has rendered playing street games philistine.

The growing trend of parentification in the guise of making children tough and mature is killing the innocence in children. Children are now acting beyond their age. A sort of parental laissez-faire has infected familial relationships. Actually, a lack of concern in parents to understand and deal with the difficulties children face in their social and school life promotes parentification, defined as the role reversal between parents and children where children are supposed to be carers and mature enough to handle their issues on their own. Consequently, this role reversal makes children seek emotional support and validation from external sources like social media.

The monetisation of family entertainment programmes on media sources like TV saturated the programmes with long and boring commercial breaks. Consequently, children and youth were attracted naturally towards break-free entertainment. It transformed family entertainment time into individual corner entertainment. Unsatisfied with the lack of choice and capitalising on the lax parental engagement, children were cornered with no choice but to resort to the cosy lap of the digital screen.

The failure of our education system to satisfy the youth's cravings for novelty and the teachers' torpor to keep pace with the changing times enhanced the youth's dependence on digital screen as the search engines take them wherever they want to. Rather, parents and teachers must pose themselves as their children's Google to answer the questions and solve the mysteries that nag them to unrest and anxiety. The void created by the absence of human engagement gets filled with addiction to technology.

The extinction of the extended family system has deprived children of grand-parental entertainment time. The nuclear family system has pushed every member to the corners, living lonely together.

Parents will have to spare time for family storytelling, story-watching and story-listening to channelise the addiction to digital screen. To discourage phubbing (snubbing through phone), no-phone zones must be created at the dining table and meet-ups. Many tech executives keep their children away from digital screen. It suggests that 'they don't think the benefits always outweigh the risks'.