Internet addiction blight on rural children

With the rapid spread of smartphones and wireless networks, kids today enjoy easier access to the internet. This has led to a growing rate of internet addiction among children. Particularly rural kids, who are more likely to be addicted to livestreaming and mobile games compared with children in urban areas.

Their living situation certainly plays a role here as in cities parents usually live with their children, enabling them to teach and supervise their kids more conveniently. Besides, the ample cultural and entertainment facilities in cities including libraries, amusement parks and parks offer kids a lot of choices to spend their time even if their parents don't sign them up many remedial and special interest classes for them. Kids in rural areas, however, face a more dismal scenario－many have been left behind while their parents work elsewhere and have no access to decent cultural and recreational facilities apart from their homes and schools.

Generally, the children of migrant workers live with their grandparents in the countryside. While grandparents usually try to take good care of their grandchildren, they are mainly concerned about their diet and accommodation, and they often lack understanding of their children's interests and hobbies or their mental state. Furthermore, due to the generation gap, the older generation may not realize the potential dangers associated with smartphones. In most cases, this makes rural children's addiction to mobile phones a distinct possibility since migrant parents will buy their children a smartphone to help keep in contact and keep them occupied and "out of trouble".

Also many efforts dedicated to preventing kids becoming addicted to their phones fail without the proper supervision from parents. For instance, the anti-addiction system that many mobile games have introduced is of limited effect as children can use an adults' identity information to register an account and so circumvent the system.

For migrant parents, preventing their children from getting addicted to mobile games and live streaming is not easy.

The key to reducing the incidence of internet addiction among rural kids lies in developing and consolidating rural industries to enable adults in the countryside to find a job near their home and strike a balance between raising their children and making money. Enterprises, education departments and schools can never guide and care for children like their parents do, although they also share responsibility to keep children from getting addicted to mobile phones.

In this respect, promoting rural industries takes on a new urgency as it not only relates to children's well-being, but can also exert much influence on their futures. At the least, it may determine whether the children can successfully enter a higher school. At the most, it can enable children born into a humble family to move up the social ladder. Thus we should never adopt a laissez-faire attitude to the management of problems related to the left behind children.

One well-known entrepreneur once said, he had donated about 10 million yuan ($1.22 million) to his Alma Mater in the forms of scholarships and student grants. Yet contrasted with the popularity and smooth dispensation of the scholarships the grants only received limited applications. Because the students coming from underprivileged families account for less than 30 percent of students, compared with 70 percent years ago.

This story demonstrates the difficulty that rural students face in getting higher education. Worse still, left behind children are the less-advantaged rural students. As urbanization advances with more momentum, the possibility of left behind children getting mired in mobile games and live streaming looms ever larger. Which may make them lag behind in the competition against children in urban districts, even the race of life.

The article was first published on China Youth Daily.