Child mobile phone addicts get treatment
The article given below has been re-written by Janet Hardy-Gouldto use words and constructions appropriate to this level of learning and understanding.
Two Spanish children are being treated for addiction to mobile phones. The children, 12 and 13, were admitted to a mental health clinic by their parents because they could not carry out normal activities without their phones.
The children were doing badly at school abd spent an average of six hours a day, talking, texting or playing video games on their phones.
Dr Maite Utges, director of the centre where the children are being treated, said: "It is the first time we have used a specific treatment for a dependence on the mobile phone."
"They both showed disturbed behaviour and had serious difficulties leading normal lives."
Before they started treatment both children had their own phones for 18 months and were not controlled by their parents.
"One child paid for their phone by getting money from the grandmother and other family members, without explaining what they were going to do with it," said Utges.
The children have been learning to live without their phones. But Utges said they might need at least a year of treatment to get them off the "drug".
There have been concerns about the mobile phone "dependency" in several countries. Japan has asked paretns to limit phone usage because of negative effects in children who overuse them. Two cases have been reported in Britain of young people obsessed by their phones who became depressed when the number of calls from friends went down.
A study in Spain found that 30% of children between the ages of 11 and 17 felt "extremely oppressed" when their phone was taken away. Another study found that 65% of children between 10 and 15 in Spain had a mobile phone in 2007.
Dr Utges said parents should not allow their children to have mobile phones until they were at least 16.
Lesson Plan
Focus: reading, writing an advice sheet using should/shouldn't
Materials: copies of the article, a mobile phone and other objects
Time: 55 minutes
Tell the group you are going to look at an article about addiction. Establish the vocabulary: addiction, addict, be addicted to something. Ask: What type of things can people become addicted to? - 7 mins
Write the gapped headline on the board: Child ___ addicts get treatment. Bring into the room some objects to represent what children might become addicted to eg a phone, sweets, computergame, DVD etc. Students guess in pairs the missing word. Write up their ideas on the board. Then give out the article, students read the headline and see if they were correct. - 8 mins
Write up the questions below on the board. Go through the first parts of the sentences and check unknown vocabulary. Students read the article and then match the sentences with the numbered phrases following - 12 mins
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Write up these sentences on the board. Students read again and complete them with a word from the article. - 8 mins
- The children's ___ took them to the clinic.
- It is the ___ time the clinic has treated mobile phone addiction.
- One child got money from their ___.
- In ___ the governement has asked parents to limit children's phone usage.
Ask students: What do you think is good advice for parents about children and mobile phones? Explain that they are going to write an advice sheet for parents. In pairs students list eight points, eg:
- You should carefully control your children's mobile phone use.
- You shouldn't give your children mobile phones before the age of 12.
Students then compare their advice sheet with another pair. Do they agree with each other's ideas? - 20 mins
