Gadgets can be the most important thing in our modern life. These electronic devices had been introduced into our life about more than a decades ago, and who knows, gadget has been a major part to continue our life or to accomplish works. This technology has a wide range of availability in the market such as smartphone, tablet, laptop and many more. Gadgets also known as a technology that used for making audio, video and also help us to communicate with another person that not around us. Nowadays, due this Covid-19 pandemic, it has minimised our real or face to face communication either formal communication or daily communication with people. Beside all of the goods this electronic device can give us, gadgets can give us an addiction that can cause a major effect not just for adults but also for kids.
So, in this article, we will be discussed more issues and conflict arise due to the obsession to gadget. Ever since the pandemic has started, people seem became too attached to their gadget, and this situation is very not healthy because of the domination electronic devices can give many negative impact to our life. One of the negative impact due to addiction of gadget is it might cause the internet addiction disorder (IAD). A study has demonstrated that around 28.6% of adolescents in Malaysia have a positive association to IAD symptoms. In this study, some numbers of adults need to take internet addictive test, and the results shows that most of the have positive results on this addiction and also many of them were diagnosed with health anxiety problems. This is one of the most dangerous effect from addiction to the electronic device because it will effect our body.
Internet Addiction Disorder can ruin our live by causing the psychological disturbance, neurological disturbance and the most common effect from this is having social interaction problems. Covid-19 pandemic also has led to the increasing of usage of electronic devices especially among children and teenagers. We know that, during the covid-19 pandemic, most of the school perform the teaching lesson using online medium, the student needs to attend the classes online using their electronic devices. This situation makes the kids become more addicted to their gadgets and the parents might assuming they were studying using the devices, but most of them used this chance to play with their electronic devices such as game or internet. This addiction can give a very bad impact for child or teenagers especially for their brain development. During the toddler years, the brain should develop triple times until reach the adults years.
Based on some studies about brain development, child that being too expose to gadget will suffer cognitive delays, increased impulsivity and also low ability for self-regulation. Furthermore, we also known that covid-19 just start around early last year and still undergoing until now. Since then, there is a lot of domestic violence has reported during the lockdown and this is somehow more or less can be relate to the over usage of gadgets. For example, one case reported a husband start to violate his wife just because of his wife ask him to stop playing the video games.
Beside that, one of psychologist, Professor Dr Mariani Mohd Nor said that many young couples tends to express their anger toward their partner in social media during the domestic conflict. This situation clearly can lead to the divorce or domestic violence in the marriage. Dr Mariani also said that social media that can be access by gadget such as Whatsapp, Facebook and more can be a factor that led into cheating on their partners by befriending with others. We can clearly see from all of this situation, addiction to electronic device can give the biggest bad impact in our relationship with people that we loved. From all of the issues stated, there is solution to overcome or treat the addiction.
For those that are suffering with IAD, you can reach help by going for treatment that can help regain your self-confidence and self-esteem, learn methods to cope with difficult situations and look towards an optimistic future. Next, to overcome gadget addiction for teenage and child, parent or adult need to set a strict schedule and monitor their child use of gadgets. During the pandemic Covid-19 it is easier for parents to monitor their child activity since the work from home situation. Parents need to use this chance to monitor their children so that it can avoid them from being addicted with gadget.
Lastly for people that were facing domestic violence, the best decision is to that situation whenever you feel unsafe and report that to emergency services or police. In conclusion, addiction to gadget can give us a lot of disadvantages in our society either for the adults and for kids. The addiction to electronic device may cause unhealthy lifestyle which our mind will stuck with the gadget and easy to lose focus because of it especially for student, they might lose focus in study and it can directly effect their academic performance. There is no wrong to use the gadget in our modern life to help us easiest our work as long as we know the limits and used it in a good way.
REFRENCE
[1] Prasanna, “Essay on addiction to gadget”, Aplus Topper, 2020. Link : https://www.aplustopper.com/essay-on-addiction-to-gadgets/ [2] Dr Zafir Khan, “ Beware of gadget and internet addiction”, New Straits Times, 2020.
Link : https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nst.com.my/amp/opinion/columnists/2020/06/601107/beware-dangers-gadget-and-internet-addiction [3] Sonia Khodabakhs, Shamal Ramasamy, Tan Yen Teng, Chan Siaw Leng, “ Impact of internet addiction on health anxiety in Malaysian youth during Covid-19 pandemic”, 2021. Link : https://ejournal.lucp.net/index.php/mjmr/article/view/1316 [4] Jennifer Holmes, “ 9 effects of modern gadgets on children development” Playground equipment. Link : https://www.playgroundequipment.com/effects-modern-gadgets-children-development/ [5] “Electronic gadgets, social media contribute to divorce in Malaysia”, New Straits Times, 2020. Link : https://www.nst.com.my/news/2016/01/122047/electronic-gadgets-social-media-contribute-divorce-malaysia
