Ma Jianmin.
Graduate student of School of Sociology, Wuhan University).
At present, the problem of mobile phone addiction among rural adolescents and children has become a serious problem that needs urgent attention. During the Chinese New Year, a kang head, seven or eight children ranging in age from 4 to 18 years old got together, each holding a mobile phone and indulging in it, watching animations, playing games, brushing **, it was a whole day, and the parents around them also frequently sighed: "Today's children can't manage it at all, and a mobile phone is enchanted." This is a picture that I often saw when I returned to my hometown to visit relatives, and it is also a common phenomenon in rural society today. The author will analyze the typical cases observed during his return to his hometown, because the extreme behavior of his cousin during the Chinese New Year this year made me want to know more about why rural teenagers and children are so addicted to mobile phones.
1) "Internet addicted teenagers" in the eyes of relatives
Coordinates in Anqiu Village, Weifang, Shandong, the author's cousin Xiaohao is in his second year of high school and studying in a boarding school in the urban area. Xiao Hao, who started boarding in junior high school, has his own mobile phone, but the problem that arises is mobile phone addiction. The boarding school has very strict mobile phone control, so Xiaohao's mobile phone is controlled by the head teacher most of the time during school. Therefore, when it comes to holidays, Xiao Hao spends almost all of his time playing with his mobile phone, and he often starts playing when he gets up every day, and plays until bedtime, and spends half an hour a day eating at most. During the Chinese New Year this year, the author met with Xiao Hao three times, but each meeting was just to say hello, every time the author tried to put forward a topic to initiate a chat, Xiao Hao was perfunctory or evasive, and the total communication time of the three meetings did not exceed ten minutes. And Xiao Hao broke out two fierce quarrels with his uncle and aunt in front of his relatives because of the problem of mobile phone addiction, one because he was playing a game so he didn't go to the table on time to eat, and the other time because he didn't go to the living room to greet and chat with his relatives because he was playing with his mobile phone. My aunt has been angry many times because of Xiao Hao's addictive behavior, and always says in front of relatives that Xiao Hao is hopeless, and I don't know what to say. And I heard my aunt say that Xiao Hao's grades in school have seriously declined, from 600 points to 400 points, and many times said that he can't lift his spirits in school, and he doesn't finish his homework on time during the holidays, doesn't study and even skips cram school under the pretext of skipping cram school, and he is also irritable and impulsive emotionally. What surprised and amused the relatives even more was that the only time Xiao Hao took the initiative to help serve the food and clean up the table during the Chinese New Year was because he wanted to charge money into the game. After this series of behaviors, Xiao Hao in the eyes of relatives is withdrawn and irritable, closed and lazy, rebellious and poor in learning, a typical image of an Internet addicted teenager, and the reason for the formation of this image is self-evident, completely blamed on Xiao Hao himself for being "poisoned", usually playing mobile phone games is completely uncontrollable, Xiao Hao has also become a negative case of parents admonishing children.
In the author's opinion, Xiao Hao, who is in the special period of adolescence, has not yet completed the task of helping him become more mature, and his own self-control ability is poor, and his performance is prone to extreme emotionality, so the cause of Xiao Hao's series of problem behaviors is of course inseparable from Xiao Hao's own reasons. But the existence of problem behavior is not caused by a single line, we always think about the essential reason behind the problem. The author believes that every teenager, as an individual person, always has potential, development and transformation power, and can be molded. As far as addictive behavior is concerned, it is obvious that we should not look at the problem from Xiaohao, the addict, in isolation, but should look at the entire family system for a comprehensive and detailed observation. While we pay attention to the factors of adolescents and children themselves, we should also look at the family factors behind each child's addictive behavior.
2) "Undercurrents" within the family
The first is the transformation of family interactions. The family is a system in which people and things within the family influence each other, and each person has more or less influence on other family members. The author believes that Xiaohao's family environment and family interaction are an important reason for his addictive behavior. Xiao Hao's family members include grandfather and grandmother, father and mother, Xiao Hao and his younger brother. Since Xiao Hao's fifth grade, that is, after his younger brother was born, Xiao Hao's father began to go out to work, and he will go home every year only on holidays, and he will bring gifts to Xiao Hao when he goes home, Xiao Hao's *** tablet is bought by his father. But unlike the previous days when he took Xiao Hao out to play during the New Year's holidays, his father lacked psychological and emotional care for Xiao Hao in recent years because he was busy working outside, and he also lacked communication. My mother works in a textile factory near her home, and she works long hours a day because of the piecework, sometimes often working overtime. When he was a child, his mother doted on Xiao Hao and tried her best to meet Xiao Hao's requirements, Xiao Hao was very dependent on his mother when he was a child. But as he grows older or the psychological impact of adolescence in the growth stage, coupled with the increasing addiction to mobile phones, Xiao Hao has become silent, and his mother's concern has become nagging since when, so the communication between Xiao Hao and his mother is becoming less and less. When Xiao Hao has problem behavior, his mother will often lecture Xiao Hao, but it doesn't help. Xiao Hao's parents try their best to meet Xiao Hao's needs financially, but his parents usually accompany and discipline Xiao Hao less, and Xiao Hao has lived with his grandparents most of the time since he was a child. After Xiao Hao's younger brother was born, his parents paid less attention to Xiao Hao, and his father spent more time with his younger brother when he came home. 's mother is also busy taking care of her younger brother and work, and her attention to Xiaohao is often inclined to nag, and even sometimes she beats and scolds when she disagrees, and she doesn't know much about her needs and feelings. Parents' care, guidance and attention to Xiao Hao, especially in emotional satisfaction, are less, and parent-child communication is neglected, and parents' accusations of Xiao Hao's anger lead to angry and negative responses, and there is no virtuous cycle of causality. After the birth of the younger brother, a new triangular relationship was formed between the parents and the younger brother, and the relationship between Xiaohao and his parents also changed from integration to tension. The author contacted Xiao Hao and found that as his younger brother grew older, Xiao Hao became more and more reluctant to communicate with others, especially during the Chinese New Year, several times the accompanying travel promised by his parents was forced to cancel, and Xiao Hao became less and less involved in family activities.
There is always a purpose and function behind the behavior, and for Xiao Hao's mobile phone addiction, his uncontrolled Internet access and game addiction are generally to balance and adapt to the above-mentioned family relationships. Xiao Hao's mobile phone addiction makes the whole family very crazy, sometimes the whole family will always pay attention to whether Xiao Hao is playing with his mobile phone on the Internet, whether it is preaching or scolding, Xiao Hao has made himself the center of family attention again through Internet addiction. The scolding of his parents may hurt Xiao Hao very much, but the love is deeply responsible, and Xiao Hao also proved that his parents care about him through the scolding of his parents, which is much better than being ignored by the family. Xiao Hao's mobile phone addiction may also be to a certain extent to regain the attention of his parents. Being in a rural area, lacking playmates, lack of recreational activities, and a lack of emotional support and communication between Xiao Hao and his family, make Xiao Hao tend to seek recognition and support from the Internet in games. Control, repression, violence, indifference, preference, alienation and the trauma caused by family interaction may become the driving factors of mobile phone addiction among rural adolescents and children. We should focus on the improvement of family relationships and family interaction patterns, rather than focusing on individual problems.
The second is the distortion of family education methods. Xiaohao's parents have great expectations for his learning, but there is a big conflict between parents' expectations and actions. During primary school, because of the backward educational resources in the village, Xiao Hao was sent to a primary school in the urban area, taking the school bus back and forth every morning and evening, and eating and resting at the custodian institution at noon, but when he was a child, his mother would tutor Xiao Hao every night to study. Xiao Hao's academic performance has been relatively good during primary school, and Xiao Hao's father bought Xiao Hao his first tablet computer during the summer vacation of the sixth grade, and Xiao Hao slowly began to contact the Internet. In the first semester of the first semester of junior high school, my father and mother were afraid that Xiao Hao would not adapt to boarding life, so they bought Xiao Hao a smartphone and let Xiao Hao take it to school, so that he could call home at any time. But at the beginning of the epidemic, the school adopted the form of online teaching, it was difficult for the mother to tutor Xiao Hao to complete the junior high school coursework, the father was not at home all the year round, the mother was busy working during the day and sometimes worked overtime at night, and the grandparents would not care about Xiao Hao's learning, Xiao Hao, who studied online classes, lost a good learning environment and lost control, listening to Xiao Hao's mother, Xiao Hao was also playing with his mobile phone during the teacher's teaching, not listening to classes and not writing homework, the tasks assigned by the teacher were rarely completed, and the mobile phone screen time was up to twelve hours a day. When the epidemic prevention and control was normalized, Xiao Hao didn't communicate and play with relatives and friends at home when he went home on vacation, but just played games with his classmates in the house or watched the short **, sometimes his grandparents asked Xiao Hao to put down his mobile phone to study and eat, Xiao Hao not only didn't listen but also carried out verbal confrontation. After his mother's persuasion failed, his mother forcibly confiscated Xiao Hao's tablet, and then Xiao Hao even went on a hunger strike and beat his mother to ask for a mobile phone. I heard my aunt say that Xiao Hao didn't sleep at night for a period of time during the holiday, and secretly played with his mobile phone after his parents fell asleep, played late, and then went to bed during the day the next day. After high school, every time he went home during the holidays and during the winter and summer vacations, Xiao Hao spent most of his time at home playing games and watching **, and gradually became addicted to mobile phones.
There is a misunderstanding in the concept of parental education, and parents blame Xiaohao's own problems for mobile phone addiction, far from the essence of the problem. Under the influence of the low education level of his parents and the influence of contemporary thoughts, Xiao Hao's parents believe that learning is the only way out, and they have high expectations and requirements for Xiao Hao, but either they don't care about it, or the strict education method causes Xiao Hao's resistance. Seeing Xiao Hao addicted to mobile phones day by day, parents are more strict, but in fact, when the game and heavy learning can not be taken into account, contemporary teenagers themselves are easy to fall into anxiety, and the expectations from parents, encouragement and trust are the pressure of teenagers, plus the expectations of parents do not match the results of teenagers' own efforts, in the face of negative feedback from parents and negative education methods, teenagers are more inclined to choose to indulge in games, broken jars. In addition, Xiao Hao's parents will establish contact with the school teacher, and use the teacher as a force to achieve effective control, and under the intervention of this authoritative relationship pressure, the conflict in the parent-child relationship will be more prominent. In mobile phones, especially in the world of online games, it often only takes a small amount of labor to achieve game victories, upgrades, etc., and the results achieved will be recognized by teammates and netizens in the game. During the Chinese New Year, I saw Xiao Hao showing a very excited state when playing games with his classmates and friends, and he would often communicate with his teammates in the game. When Xiao Hao and his classmates played games, they felt the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction of being noticed, recognized and supported, and found themselves in online games, which made the adolescent Xiao Hao unable to refuse.
Xiao Hao's mobile phone addiction is like a mirror, reflecting a series of problems in rural family education. On the other hand, their own families are also like this, rural parents' concept of only ranking and subordination, only score theory is difficult to change, during the Chinese New Year, the conversation after tea and dinner is always other people's children and how many people have taken the test, parents always expect their children to work hard to get good grades, and the culprits of bad grades are either the children themselves or mobile phones and the Internet. But in fact, in the process of educating their children, parents either use authority to extremely coercive control, or the actual perfunctory wrong companionship on the surface, or the double standard behavior of controlling the children themselves but holding the mobile phone to swipe **, or they blame the other half of the education management negligence, directly when the child is writing homework, the husband and wife start to quarrel ......And Xiao Hao's mother often says to relatives and friends in front of Xiao Hao himself, "I'm used to counting, it's not as obedient as xxx at all", "I can't count down to the exam, I'm hopeless" and other similar derogatory words, the author thinks that this kind of scene is undoubtedly abusing Xiao Hao's psychology. Xiao Hao is in adolescence, eager to be recognized by others, so as to develop self-esteem and cultivate a sense of autonomy, but because of the strict family discipline style, there is an unequal power relationship between parents and children, so that Xiao Hao's cultivation of autonomy has caused obstacles, Xiao Hao hopes to get more privileges and freedom than in the past and tries to gain independence and autonomy, strict control will make Xiao Hao more rebellious, further worsening the relationship, And this kind of demeaning behavior in public social occasions also makes Xiao Hao embarrassed and uncomfortable every time he faces this occasion, so he reacts evasively. Lack of emotional support,Education and distorted family interaction and family environment atmosphere,Xiao Hao showed extreme resistance to communicating with his parents during the Chinese New Year,Always silent to deal with the interaction with family members and even avoid communicating with relatives and friends at home,When facing uncontrolled social situations,Addicted to the online world in the mobile phone、Communication with peer groups in the mobile phone,It will make Xiao Hao feel safer and happier。
The family is a system, and the growth of the individual is inseparable from the family, and the development of the family is also inseparable from the individual. Problematic family relationships, interaction patterns, and communication styles can lead to deviations in individual behavior, just like Xiaohao's family and Xiaohao's mobile phone addiction. However, every family has its own strengths and resilience, and the author believes that it is important to identify and make family members aware of the potential strengths and resilience of the family from a strength-based perspective, and realize that family members support each other. In particular, it is necessary to establish a good family communication model, under the background of traditional culture, people's communication patterns are implicit and not direct, and the desire to express is relatively low, their own needs will not be directly said, and they are always inconsistent, and parents always can't let go of their authoritative position, but the direction and goal of family members are the same, only by changing inappropriate communication methods, can we better promote personal growth and family development. A family, the family leadership and the right to speak is the economic backbone of the family, in Xiaohao's family is Xiaohao's father and mother, and to form a good family order and atmosphere, it is nothing more than to take into account the "old and young", on the basis of reconciling the interaction between husband and wife, the elderly and children should have more respect and care. The author will not repeat the "small", and the "old" is also an issue that the author observes and understands in his next homecoming plan. Every family will experience some major challenges in the course of its life, and the loss of the ability of healthy elderly people in the family to work is one of them.