Srinagar, Feb 10: Civil society has stepped up its campaign against digital addiction in Kashmir.
Managing Committee of Amar Singh Club, Srinagar held the third interaction of its program ‘Common Interest Conversations’ on the topic of Digital Addiction: An Invisible Pandemic on the 8th of February, 2025.
The interaction was presided over by Learned Senior Advocate Zaffar Shahand chaired by eminent psychiatrist Dr Mustaq A Margoob. The panel included Dr Shazia Kouser – Developmental Psychiatrist, Directorate of Health Services, Kashmir, Mohammed Rafi – Former Director of Education, Peerzada Ashiq, Bureau Chief (The Hindu), Professor Mahmood Khan – Kashmir University, Dr Musharaf Masudi, G N War – Education, Sardar Nasir Ali Khan, Sameer Wazeer (IUST), Tahir Peerzada and Managing Committee Members Rauf Ahmed Punjabi, Parvez Fazili, Abid Shamas and other members of the Club.
The agenda of the interaction was an in-depth examination of the educational system and the impact of digital technology on it. Nasir Hamid Khan, Club Secretary welcomed the participants and thanked learned Senior Advocate Zaffar A Shah for presiding over and renowned Psychiatrist Dr Mustaq A Margoob, for chairing the interaction.
Zaffar Shah said that in light of previous interactions, it was clear that overconsumption of technology had negative effects on the minds of the younger generation and perhaps it was time to introduce the proper use of technology as a subject in the curriculum as a part of their education. It would enable them from the very beginning of their learning process to differentiate between the good and bad of technology. He stressed the thought that education to be functional and focus on the needs and interests of the student without the stress of grades and merit percentages. Students needed to be taught the skills they needed to interact with technology.
He said that efforts needed to be made to enhance the natural learning processes of the individual which develop the life and quality of mind rather than goal-oriented education which appeared to put students under stress. He said that we intend to converge on certain issues that we think are the issues that are prevalent in our society today and how the right-thinking people of the society should respond to these issues.
“Do we become indifferent and leave the issue as it is, or should we play the blame game as in parents shifting the blame to schools and vice versa? He said that God has not been discriminatory and provided, more or less, equal intelligence to all but it depends on how we use that intelligence that makes all the difference. He said that biologically it has been seen that the brain loves comfort and laziness and an effort is required to get out of our comfort zones. Children have the same tendencies and it is a matter of concern that when we expose children to this technology. As adults, we have the luxury of choice which is based on our mental capacities and we make those choices hundreds of times in a day. For a child whose brains are yet to develop fully, there is no choice, he is impressed by visuals,” he said.
He said that during his childhood, mothers used to ensure that their child ate a meal, even if it took her 1 to 2 hours of running after him. Does today’s mother have the time? Parents tend to entrust all responsibilities to the schools and they are interested in what percentage of marks their child gets at the end of the year. Parents do not have the time today, sometimes due to professional commitments, sometimes due to economic reasons, and sometimes when they simply don’t care enough.
“Today, we can rely on the expert opinion of Dr Sushil Razdan who said that it damages the brains of children and affects creativity. We cannot ignore this fundamental thing. It affects the fundamentals of his existence, of his personality ultimately, of everything he does in life. This then becomes a matter of concern which requires a multi-dimensional response from us. This requires us to ask hard questions to ourselves as a society and try to find hard answers. We are not here to seek answers for ourselves and our children, but we seek solutions based on the collective wisdom of the society for the collective good of the society. We need concrete and tangible solutions,“ he added.
Dr Mustaq A. Margoob stated that mental health experts in Kashmir were concerned at the rising number of cases of parents approaching them regarding their wards indulging in hyperactive behavior, abnormal anger and violence issues, and reduced physical growth.
In his extensive clinical practice and that of other mental care experts, there was a sharp rise in such cases where further probes reveal that the same children appear to be visibly pacified and calm when given a mobile device – clear signs of the pandemic of digital addiction including virtual Autism – a preventable and reversible affliction.
He said the first six years of life are an extremely critical period where the foundations of personality are laid by the mind by processing and understanding the world around it. He said that nature has designed stress coming from peer pressure, competition, and sports, as a positive trigger for children to face challenges, achieve goals, adapt to their environment, and gain confidence which is essential for learning, growth, and personality development. He said that digital devices had added debilitating levels of stress on children and impaired their emotional intelligence processes due to which they find it hard to connect with their families and the community.
He said that it had been seen that the use of digital devices was akin to driving a 4×4 vehicle through your brain circuits and it takes 2-4 hours of screen-free time for the mental network to restore baseline levels. He stated that the use of digital devices 2 hours before bedtime interfered with the natural sleep patterns resulting in loss of focus and physical and mental fatigue. The rise in anxiety and depression disorder cases in Kashmirwase is directly attributable to the use of smartphones. He said that despite a few flash-in-the-pan success stories, it was apparent that the emotional quotient levels of our children were steadily on a downward path and they had become self-centered and emotionally disconnected from the living world around them.
“Surging waters of the digital river have already begun submerging society by breaching into our minds and homes and it is important to recognize and address this crisis before we are avalanched away. He said that this was a serious challenge that could not be managed by half-hearted efforts and would require families, the community, and the state to respond urgently with everything we have. Today, globally medical authorities are stressing the importance of preventive measures in addition to curative measures for treating various conditions,” he said.
Narrating his own experience, he said that in the 1990s, there used to be 2 to 3 psychiatrists who treated patients from all over Kashmir in the Mental Hospital. “Today, our Institute of Mental Health- having a substantial manpower of around 50 to 60 mental care professionals as well as at least 1 to 2 psychiatrists available in each District Hospital catering to only 6 to 10 percent of patients of psychiatric disorders of Kashmir leaving an estimated 90 percent of the untreated or fend for their needs from other sources,” he said
. He said this had given rise to a mafia of specialized imposters in Kashmir Valley, especially at village and town levels, who not only prey upon the psychiatric vulnerabilities of the patients but drain the blood out of their families too. We have seen that medically, such patients tend to suffer more harm than any benefit.
Presenting the vote of thanks, Nasir Hamid Khan said that earlier conversations, besides being a learning experience for us, have been well received in the society. “We have successfully triggered public debates on various platforms. I was following some of these debates and I couldn’t help but sense an element of fatalism – which is the belief that nothing can be done to reduce the harm; that it is something pre-determined and beyond our control. But as our learned Senior Advocate friend Zaffar Shah so eloquently put it, it is a man-made problem and nothing divine, that it cannot be managed or controlled,” he said