Children who regularly use smartphones cannot sustain attention for long periods and may struggle to focus on complex tasks, according to Information Technology Associate Professor Yeslam Al-Saggaf who's conducting a study into personality and smartphone use at Charles Sturt University.
"From the perspective of the children, we found that it could lead to an inability to sustain attention for longer periods. Children and even youth will struggle with maintaining attention," Professor Al-Saggaf told SBS News.
"For me that could create even bigger problems in terms of not being able to focus on complex ideas or difficult tasks."
Additionally, Professor Al-Saggaf said regular use of smartphones could produce anxiety and anger in children, such as when their phones are confiscated.
He also said it was problematic when parents paid more attention to their phones than their children, an action known as 'phubbing'.
Preliminary results in a part of his study show that 32 per cent of respondents said they phubbed their children sometimes and 12 per cent said they did so very often.
"For me that’s very alarming," he said.
"Children always seek attention and if the adult, the parents, the carers, phub them, they will feel less valued, they will feel unloved and they might feel uncared for."
His comments come after Bloomberg News reported Wednesday that two large shareholders of Apple had written to the multinational technology company, urging it to study whether iPhones impacted on children's mental health.
Investor Jana Partners LLC and CALSTRS (California State Teachers' Retirement System), who own a total of about $2 billion in Apple shares, urged Apple to facilitate ways for parents to restrict children from the same access as adults have.
"There is also a growing societal unease about whether at least some people are getting too much of a good thing when it comes to technology," according to the investors' letter, dated January 6.
"At some point," they said, it "is likely to impact even Apple."
In a statement to SBS News, a spokesperson for Apple said it had always looked out for children.
"We work hard to create powerful products that inspire, entertain, and educate children while also helping parents protect them online. We lead the industry by offering intuitive parental controls built right into the operating system."
The spokesperson said Apple began delivering controls for iPhone in 2008, which gave parents the ability to restrict content including apps, movies, websites, songs and books, as well as cellular data, password settings and other features.
"Effectively anything a child could download or access online can be easily blocked or restricted by a parent.
The spokesperson added that Apple is committed to improving its controls.
"We have new features and enhancements planned for the future, to add functionality and make these tools even more robust."
Reward system
Professor Al-Saggaf suggests parents regulate the amount of time children use smartphones.
"Adults' access to the smartphone is becoming more of a basic right, but for children I think of it as a privilege. They should have access to it as a reward."
He suggests children could be given access after they've played in the backyard, or played with other children "so they live as children".
But he acknowledges it is important that children not be fully restricted.
"The technology, the language of the day, they need to be able to be good at it, they need to be able to work with it and improve it and learn through it.
"And if we deny them access to the new technology we are creating another divide that will make them at a disadvantage when they go to school, [and when] they learn and they socialise and they interact with their peers who are more smartphone savvy."
