Is smartphone addiction affecting your child? How to keep them away from this “drug”? – Bobby Chakraborty tells you

Recently the US Surgeon General Dr Vivek Murthy is asking for a statutory warning label on social media platforms like it’s there on cigarette packets, because adolescent mental health is so terribly affected by social media and smartphone addiction. (Details here.)

Actor-activist Bobby Chakraborty realised the need for building awareness on all these issues more than a decade back. He has been running his campaign “I am the King of My Mind” from the year 2012. In the process he has saved thousands of children from drug, alcohol, cigarettes and smartphone addiction.

While having a conversation with Bobby, I asked him, “What kind of impact have you been able to make with this campaign?” Bobby instantly showed me two messages he had received that day. He said he receives messages like this every single day.

Message 1:

I was a part of Adda #298 at St Joseph’s College, Kolkata some 7/8 years back. I have never touched cigarettes or alcohol. I am in the US now and I am very proud of myself for never feeling a need to get into this. And this is all thanks to your session.

Message 2:

I am currently an undergraduate student at IIT, Kharagpur. I was very small when you came to our school St. Xavier’s, Durgapur. You told us about withdrawal symptoms and made us promise that we will never touch cigarettes. I am glad I kept that promise and I am a healthy individual today. Thanks to you and my school that you showed me the right way.

Right now, more than cigarettes, alcohol and drugs it’s smartphones that are proving to be the biggest challenge. In this interview Bobby explains why and how to overcome it.

In the current scenario why do you feel smartphone addiction is the worst?

Smartphone is a necessary evil because of the immense power of internet. But the saddest part is ‘internet’ has reached everywhere through smartphones, but ‘education’ hasn’t. By education I don’t mean the academic part of it only, as that means nothing if we don’t educate a child about the basic human values and social responsibilities.

So if a child is not ‘educated’ to filter the dark forces through internet, quite obviously it’s corrupting the young, impressionable minds, like never before. One has to understand why and how we are human beings and not animals.

I believe it’s because of two reasons:

• The fact that we can control the animalistic ‘violence’ within us.
• The fact that we can control the animalistic ‘sexual’ instinct within us.

If these two extremely powerful basic instincts go out of control, we are reduced to nothing but street dogs.

That’s exactly what’s happening to the people all around. Every moment you see human beings trapped in the dark corners of social networking sites. They are trapped in the quest to be ‘noticed by any means’. In the process they are losing self-respect, shame, social responsibility, ambition and basic sanity.

They are doing ‘anything and everything possible’ just to get those meaningless virtual likes/ followers/subscribers from creeps and perverts all around, who themselves are also trapped in their own voyeuristic/sadistic needs triggered by the internet.

In this madness all around, the children, post-pandemic have been affected the most, as the smartphone by then had become a medium of education and companionship to even a kindergartener.

Is there any difference between alcohol, nicotine, drug and smartphone addiction?

Drug is an agent, chemical or abstract, which will alter the physical or mental condition of a human being. Now let’s say Crocin is a drug, which alters the abnormal condition in our body to normal.

Similarly, there are other chemicals which will alter the normal condition of a human body to ‘abnormal’.

Such chemicals are introduced into the body through smoking, alcohol, vaping, gutkha etc. And these are widely available to a child in their immediate surroundings. But you brainwash yourself or your children into NOT identifying these easily available drugs as “drugs”.

Only heroin, cannabis, mandrake, LSD, meth etc. are called drugs. If you are smoking, vaping, consuming alcohol, chewing gutkha, you are as much a drug addict as those using heroin, meth, LSD etc.

Now we come to those ABSTRACT drugs that are entering the mind of a person through the smartphone. Before that we need to understand two words and their meaning:

1. Famous – When you are doing something constructive for the society or if you have some ‘talent’ in you then people ‘recognize’ you or follow you
2. Infamous – When people ‘recognize’ or follow you for all the wrong reasons or the wrong deeds you have done

The powerful abstract drug that we are talking about here is visibility or recognition. If a person, especially an immature mind, is not given the education to understand the difference between being famous and infamous, that abstract drug creates mayhem in the psyche of a child.

Everyone wants to be lauded, appreciated and recognized. Everyone wants to be ‘famous’, that’s deeply engraved in human psychology.

So, if a person, especially a child is not educated about the right path he/she will inadvertently fall in this deadly trap of ‘recognition by any means’, sacrificing shame, self-respect, social responsibility and sanity.

Inadvertently the child will confuse ‘being infamous’ as ‘being famous’. The situation is pretty grim and scary in the networking sites, where a humongous number of children are now present. This was unthinkable even a few years back. They are exposed and vulnerable to the trap of this abstract drug and falling prey to predators.

Alarmingly, their parents are also high on this deadly drug of ‘getting recognition by any means’. So, if your mental stability becomes abnormal then it is bound to affect your physical stability in a pretty serious way.

Can you give us some examples of how you have seen the smartphone is affecting students adversely?

There are innumerable cases that I have come across especially since the pandemic. Many of them have been confessions from the children after my sessions got over. Many were complaints from parents or the Principal. Many confessions came from random strangers, who are aware of my work.

We have to identify the abstract drug in each case first and then talk about the effect.

PORNOGRAPHY

A child from Kolkata studying in Class VIII and another from Durgapur studying in Class IX had confided in me about their addiction to pornography via smartphone. I was happy that they confessed to someone like me, who was just a stranger to them.

I was even happier that they recognized pornography as a ‘drug’ which is making them a ‘slave’ of their mind. They understood the need for proving ourselves as the truly superior creature that has many other instincts to satisfy and nurture, other than only those basic ‘animalistic’ instincts.

ONLINE GAMBLING THROUGH GAMES

What is gambling? When you invest money and want to earn out of it, by using chance, without working hard. This abstract drug of gambling is deadly, as we have seen from the pages of Mahabharata, as well as in my own family, where I have seen everything being sold off or taken away by goons because my uncle had become a gambler.

This is a deadly menace. More so, because you see the biggest of the socially irresponsible idols of the silver screen and sports world endorsing these gambling games and betting apps. They are doing it for money and in the process normalizing the prohibited act to an impressionable mind.

Parents of two children from Burdwan and Sonarpur, got in touch with me through their school Principal. They had become addicted to these nefarious online games, which thrive on spending power. In the process they started with small recharges of Rs 50, Rs 100 which inadvertently multiplied exponentially. They wanted more and started stealing from the house, from their parents’ debit cards and even from strangers in malls.

One of them was caught stealing a mobile phone in a mall and was handed over to the police. That’s when the family got to know about the degradation of their 13-year-old.

ONLINE PROSTITUTION

The incidents I have come across are appalling, but it didn’t shock me because I see young people all around willing to lose their self-respect for material gains or virtual recognition.

This child from North 24 Parganas, had seemingly got popular as a blogger. Recently some extremely graphic and revealing photos and videos of the child started getting circulated online.

Young people are falling into the trap of an online prostitution nexus that lures them with lucrative money or gift cards.

One does not realise that gangs like these are caught and even put behind bars, but the impressions online are so widely circulated, that it’s more than impossible to delete them for good. A fatal scar like this is impossible to remove from a person’s life.

What are the things students can do to handle their phones smartly?

An individual should not become a slave of the smartphone. These are a few golden rules I tell students to follow:

1. Rule your mind

The mind is a villain which tries to play tricks and tries to corrupt you physically and mentally. One has to get hold of it and rule it. That’s the reason my awareness program is titled ‘I AM THE KING OF MY MIND’.

As stated earlier a smartphone is a ‘necessary evil’. A great gadget to improve ourselves or the world. With our mind we can take the good and avoid the bad.

2. Manage your time

The smartphone helps us stay connected to our work, but we cannot surrender to the darkness it has to offer.

Schedule your time with your smartphone in the form of a timetable, which needs to be written and displayed in the open.

Your mind will ask you not to follow the controlled screen time, but if you are the king of your mind, you are bound to shut it up and manage and restrict your screen time.

3. Keep yourself busy

For the above time management to work, one needs to keep oneself busy. Idle mind is a devil’s workshop, that’s the proverb I keep telling myself and to my ‘soldiers’ in various schools, colleges and universities.

Smartphone addiction is creating a constant tussle between parents and students. What would be your advice to parents?

Yes, it’s a disturbing situation, because as I told you, just like the monster of smoking, alcoholism etc. once the monster of smartphone addiction gets in the mind of a person it’s extremely difficult to get that monster out.

Parents, in many instances are to be blamed, because they themselves are prey to that monster and they are not able to recognise smartphone addiction.

Parents are introducing toddlers to this creepy world of voyeurism, documenting their child’s every moment and putting it in public domain to gain ‘recognition and visibility’.

One can see parents handing over the smartphone to a child, at times like a bribe for not spending ample time with the child.

The child doesn’t grow up with parental care, but with the perverted eyes of attention through the smartphone. One fine day when the child is totally lost in this messy web the parents intervene. But it’s too late.

Children are soft clay. I am 100℅ sure, if they are molded right and told that smartphones are not the only thing in the life of superior beings like us, they are bound to behave like a truly intelligent person and not a zombie driven by dark forces.

You are in touch with students all the time and you have inspired many of them to become soldiers of this cause. Have the soldiers been able to make a difference when it comes to smartphone addiction?

I have always believed in the saying ‘drops make an ocean’. These active soldiers, who are students from various schools, who travel with me to other schools, who stand beside me, shoulder to shoulder and try to inspire boys and girls of their age, obviously did prove their mettle to earn that position of social influencer.

Let’s talk about active soldier Ankit Seth, who recently passed his ISC with 91℅ and is ready to join college. As you know him, because you featured him in your article when he was in Class VII, Ankit joined the movement when he was in Class V. Till date he has gone to over 45 schools, colleges and universities with me. He uses his mother’s social media account on Facebook and doesn’t feel the need to have one for himself.

He doesn’t feel the necessity to be on social media. Not that he studies 24×7, but he divides his time between sports, music, cookery, family outing, running errands, spending time with family, friends and this work he believes in.

Whenever there’s a post tagged in his mother’s account, either by me or by anyone else, he will always graciously reply and acknowledge that.

So, I mean to say, he is socially active, yet not a slave to a smartphone and I am proud of him.

How long have you been running your anti-addiction campaign and what kind of difference do you feel you have been able to make?

My uncle died at the age of 29 due to addiction. My fight started then.

I started the campaign in an organised manner in 2012. It has covered more than 410 schools, colleges, universities, red light areas, orphanages, globally.

There are a number of schools and colleges where my session has been included in their annual calendar. There are hundreds of messages, mails and comments I receive on a daily basis. In public spaces students come up to me to thank me because I changed the way they thought life to be ‘cool’.

A number of awards and recognitions, from the Governor of West Bengal, West Bengal Police, CID Department, Journalist Association, United Nations as well as The Great Dalai Lama, give me the reassurance that I am on the right path as a change-maker.

You do not have any sponsors and it’s entirely your effort and financial responsibility. What gives you the motivation to keep doing this work, day after day, year after year?

I firmly believe it doesn’t take much if you want to do good for others honestly, especially the youth, who are the pillars of our society. Right from the beginning I have been very clear that I don’t want to corrupt the USP of my efforts or spoil the image of my campaign, by making it another of those money-making social work scams.

I would not have been so steadfast in keeping it this way, if I hadn’t received regular assurance from students, parents, teachers and principals, that I am making a difference. That’s my million-dollar cheque.

Corporates would surely want to sponsor this as part of their CSR activity. Have you not been approached?

Yes, I have been approached by many, even political parties, but all of those proposals made me a tad apprehensive about the independence I would have over my child, I mean over my awareness program.

Hence, I have come to the decision that it will be me and only me who will run this show. No one can possibly fathom the amount of blood, sweat and dedication behind this uphill task I have taken up. No one can possibly share the same passion towards the cause. Hence, I would want to keep it this way till I meet someone who is as selflessly and socially responsible as I am.

You started as an actor but now you have a huge fan following among the youth for your anti-addiction work. Would you say you have undergone an identity shift?

The very reason that I jumped into an insecure profession of an actor, leaving a secure job of a marine engineer at ExxonMobil is because I wanted an identity. I wanted to be a face in the crowd and not someone anonymous, with dollars in my pocket, roaming around the whole world. While working on television I had the same feeling lately. I was losing my identity. I was getting lost among indiscreet roles. Hence, I took the sabbatical.

The identity I received with my anti-addiction campaign is the identity I always looked out for – one who dares to swim against the tide.

I am not ready to play inconspicuous roles on TV just for money. I have shot a few films, whose release I have been eagerly waiting for. Beyond that I have been super busy as a teacher of Method Acting at SMPAi.

So, there hasn’t been a shift of identity. Both identities remain. One is active and the other is dormant at the moment.

What are your plans for the future?

Plans of mere mortals don’t work. Only the plan of The Almighty holds true. So I don’t plan, rather I aim. I aim at exciting screen roles to come by, for which I would be ready to sacrifice my right hand. Hence, I keep myself fit and ready for it. I aim at taking my anti- addiction campaign to each and every child in this world. Hence, I am working very hard for more than a decade on a regular basis. I aim at making myself a better human being and not hurt anyone consciously. I aim at keeping my Ma happy and healthy. I aim at meeting my Baba in heaven in near future. Till that point of time I want to make him and Ma proud of whatever I do.