Conflicts arise as Hong Kong parents struggle to control children’s use of gadgets

Hong Kong parents are finding they are unable to control their children’s use of electronic devices, resulting in hostile relationships, a survey has found, with nearly 30 per cent of them resorting to insults and physical threats.

Social worker Wu Yan-yan, acting supervisor of Tung Wah Group of Hospitals’ Integrated Centre on Addiction Prevention and Treatment, said on Thursday that increased use of gadgets during the Covid-19 pandemic had continued.

“If the children’s use of electronic devices worsens into internet addiction, this won’t just affect them, but also cause serious problems for the mental health of their family members and the relationships with their family,” Wu said.

The centre polled 712 parents of Primary One to Form Six pupils between last September and December, with 28.5 per cent of respondents saying they had overreacted to their children’s usage of electronic devices with verbal insults, physical threats or unreasonable punishment.

Thirty-five per cent said there had been heightened family conflict from their children’s use of electronic devices, while half of the respondents had yielded an unsatisfactory mental health score in the survey.

Just over half of the children spent up to two hours on their gadgets every day for leisure purposes, while 18 per cent reportedly used them for at least four hours and 5.5 per cent for six hours or more.

Heightened conflict over device use was particularly serious for parents with children in Primary Five and Six. Over half of respondents with children in these two grades expressed doubts as to whether they were competent parents when handling their children’s use of electronic devices.