The growth of cellphone addiction among China’s “left-behind” children and the researchers and teachers fighting against it
Xia Zhuzhi only lets his 6-year-old daughter use the internet for 30 minutes a day. “Kids can’t let go of their cellphones,” says the 36-year-old associate professor from Wuhan University. “Childhood shouldn’t be about squatting in a corner scrolling through a phone all day.”
Many other parents aren’t so strict. During the Spring Festival holiday this January, Xia visited his relatives in rural Huangshi, Hubei province, but found that their pre-teen son rarely emerged from his bedroom. He was engrossed in his phone all day and refused to even greet Xia. “That’s no childhood,” says Xia. “Childhood should be about finding playmates to share fun times, and experiencing happiness and sadness together.”
Digital Babysitters: Battling Phone Addiction in China’s Rural Schools is a story from our issue, “Online Odyssey.” To read the entire issue, become a subscriber and receive the full magazine. Alternatively, you can purchase the digital version from the App Store.
Yang Tingting is a Chinese editor at The World of Chinese. Interested in telling Chinese stories, she writes mainly about culture, language, and society.
