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Study Shows Moms Using Smartphones Are Four Times More Likely To Ignore Their Children

“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” echoes through the house as mom sits on the couch, completely engrossed in her cell phone messages.

The children’s fight for attention escalates into shouting as mommy sits there and scrolls through Instagram and doesn’t hear a thing or holds up her finger, “one more minute, sweetie.” 

More and more moms are becoming hypnotized by their smartphones, detaching from the world around them, blocking out all sounds and children.

As a result, they don’t hear or acknowledge the children asking for help, needing a cuddle, or just needing mommy’s attention. 

Is it healthy? A study out of Tel Aviv University proves the answer is no. They invited 33 mothers and (their) 16 toddler boys aged two to three years old.

They had the moms participate in three different activities and their children to determine how many times they interacted with their kids during each exercise.

The entire time, the children were allowed to play near their mothers. The moms spent the same amount of time scrolling through Facebook, looking through a magazine, and putting down all devices to play freely with their children.

They were not aware that they were part of the experiment. But, on the other hand, the parents thought they were there to be part of a study to discover connections in interest between a mother and her child.

So, the mothers behaved naturally, dividing their time between their devices and interacting with their children.

Halfpoint – stock.adobe.com

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