Cellphone fight with mom ends in suicide

Cellphone fight with mom ends in suicide

Monotosh Chakraborty & Tamaghna Banerjee

Kolkata:19.11.2021

A Class-X student of a Budge Budge school was found hanging from the ceiling fan in her room at Balurghata on Thursday after her mother had reportedly stopped her from taking her cellphone to school.

The eldest among three siblings, the girl used to attend her online classes on her mother’s cellphone as the parents would leave the phone with her when they went out to work. However, since the physical classes began from Tuesday, the mother insisted on taking her cellphone to work and didn’t allow the girl to keep it with her any more. This apparently led to a bitter fight with her mother on Wednesday.

The mother took away the cell phone from her on Wednesday and on Thursday she took the cellphone to her workplace. The 14-year-old girl was found hanging from the ceiling fan of her room by her younger brother after both the parents had left their home.

“My daughter had become addicted to the cellphone. As Madhyamik exam was due shortly and since the physical classes had begun, my wife had rebuked her on Wednesday for being hooked on to the cellphone and took it away from her. On Thursday, both of us had left for work by 6.15am. My son found her hanging around 7am,” said the father, who works at a local jute mill.

The incident has brought to focus the dangers associated with over-dependence on electronic gadgets, which children had been forced into since the start of the pandemic. “It was pretty much expected that once the pandemic and the lockdown restrictions ease down, the dangers of over-reliance on digital media will turn out to be a serious concern and tackling the withdrawal symptoms will become a major challenge. The entire problem has been triggered by unrestrained screen addiction,” said child psychologist Devika De.

Psychiatrist Siladitya Ray pointed out that the incident proves two things — how increased screen time along with phone addiction can create mental instability leading to impulsive behaviour and how modern technologies of distraction can tear apart the cohesive fabric of human society.

“The most reliable way to tackle this crisis is to teach children and help them to develop an insight into the core issue that excessive screen time leads to addictive behaviour which eventually might go out of hand and generate frustration and disgruntlement. However, parents need to be patient, said Ray.