From: [email protected] To: 28 Jun 2015Hindustan Times (Mumbai)Joanna Lobo [email protected] Mumbaiites Sahil Wavhal, 18, and his brother Kaushik, 24, aren’t allowed to use their phones between 11 pm and 8 am. Their mother introduced this rule to break what she calls their addiction.SANCHIT KHANNA/HTUday Foundation’s Centre for tech de-addiction in New Delhi uses group activities to wean youngsters off their gadgets.Delhi college student Anjali Singhal, 22, would wake up every time her smartphone beeped at night. Her studies began to suffer, as did her relationship with her parents. She now switches off her phone from 11 pm to 9 am every day and spends more time studying and with her family. Across the country, people are rebelling against the hold smartphones and gadgets have taken on their lives, mindspace and their free time. It’s called a digital detox, and it’s being recommended by technology de-addiction and counselling clinics such as the one set up by Nimhans (the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences) in Bengaluru in April 2014. “A virtual break gives people time to pursue other activities and realise that there is a life beyond the digital world,” says Dr Manoj Sharma, additional professor of clinical psychology and coordinator at the SHUT (Service for Healthy Use of Technology) Clinic established as part of the Nimhans de-addiction facility in Bangalore. “A growing number of people are trying to reduce their dependence on smartphones and smart devices, even if it is something as simple as setting aside their phones while eating.” Take Singhal, for instance. She was so addicted to her phone that it had started to affect her studies and her relationship with her parents. “From being a consistently high scorer, I went to barely passing my exams. The lack of sleep also meant I was always irritable,” she says. Her mother told her it would help to focus on social work, so she joined Uday Foundation, an NGO that works to promote education and healthcare for underprivileged children. As she helped establish a reading room, and later began counselling the younger children on their studies, she realised that she preferred being logged out. She now checks her social networking accounts once a week and switches off her phone every night. While Singhal was able to tackle the problem by herself, some are seeking professional help to detox. “People are realising how the addiction can affect their lives,” says Dr Samir Parikh, psychiatrist and director of mental health at Fortis Healthcare, Delhi, who says people approaching him for help with such addiction have doubled over the past year. It’s not just adults, the last 15 months have seen the opening of three technology deaddiction centres in India catering largely to children and young adults — the SHUT clinic in Bengaluru, Hermitage in Amritsar, and Centre for Children in Internet and Technology Distress (CCITD) in Delhi. Hermitage has seen a total of 70 people enroll since it opened its internet addiction recovery centre last September. Of these, 50 were between the ages of 11 and 20. And CCITD, started by Uday Foundation last July, has treated over 150 children, some as young as seven. “It is more difficult for children; they don’t know how to get out of it,” says founder Rahul Verma. The centre conducts games and other indoor and outdoor activities to help children spend their time productively. The SHUT clinic uses ‘internet fasting’ to tackle technology addiction. “Initially they feel they cannot live without the internet and don’t know how to spend their free time. As the days pass, they lose this dependency and rediscover ways to spend their time,” says Dr Sharma.
