Screens Steal Sleep and Play: Kashmir’s Children Trapped in Mobile Phone Spiral
Doctors, teachers and parents across the Valley warn unchecked smartphone use eroding attention, disturbing sleep of children
Our Special Correspondent
Srinagar: As evening descends over Kashmir’s towns and villages, a new kind of silence settles in. It is not the calm that follows a day of outdoor play, but the hush of glowing screens—children hunched over mobile phones, eyes fixed long after dinner and often past midnight. What began as a learning tool during the pandemic has, parents and experts say, turned into a quiet crisis.
Teachers across schools in Srinagar, Anantnag and Baramulla say the change is unmistakable. Children are increasingly restless, inattentive and fatigued. “Many students struggle to focus through a single class,” says a senior government school teacher in downtown Srinagar. “They forget lessons quickly and seem mentally drained. When asked, several admit they were awake late watching videos or playing games on their phones.”
Paediatricians confirm the pattern. Dr Fayaz Ahmad, a child health specialist at a district hospital in south Kashmir, says clinics are witnessing a steady rise in screen-related complaints. “We are seeing children with disturbed sleep, frequent headaches, eye strain and mood swings. Excessive mobile phone use—especially at night—is a common factor in most such cases,” he says, warning that prolonged exposure could have long-term implications for both physical and mental health.
For parents, the struggle is deeply personal and often overwhelming. Rashid Ahmad Bhat, a shopkeeper from Anantnag, says the phone has quietly taken control of his household. “My son used to play cricket every evening,” he recalls. “Now he locks himself in a room with the phone. If we try to take it away, he becomes aggressive and refuses to eat. It feels like we are losing him to the screen.”
In Srinagar’s Bemina area, Shabnum Jan, mother of a Class 5 student, describes sleepless nights and growing anxiety. “My daughter scrolls videos till late night,” she says. “She wakes up tired, irritable and has stopped showing interest in her studies. We never imagined a phone could change a child so completely.”
Another parent, Mohammad Yousuf Mir from Baramulla, admits that many families are caught unprepared. “We are busy earning a livelihood. Giving a phone feels like keeping the child safe at home,” he says. “But now we realise it is costing them their childhood, their play and even their peace of mind.”
Mental health experts in the Valley warn that the disappearance of outdoor play and face-to-face interaction is silently eroding children’s emotional resilience. Without play, they say, children struggle to develop patience, empathy and social skills. National studies suggest that between 30 and 50 percent of adolescents exhibit signs of problematic smartphone use, while the World Health Organization has warned that more than one in ten adolescents globally shows symptoms of harmful social media behaviour linked to anxiety and sleep loss.
Experts stress that technology itself is not the enemy. What worries them is the absence of boundaries. Doctors recommend fixed screen hours, strict limits on phone use before bedtime and compulsory outdoor play. Teachers are urging schools and parents to work together before screen dependence hardens into addiction.
As Kashmir embraces a digital future, the challenge before families and institutions is clear: to ensure that screens remain tools for learning, not traps that steal sleep, silence playgrounds and reshape childhood in ways that may prove difficult to reverse.
