Unsupervised Smartphone Use and Its Impacts on Children’s Development, Risks and Opportunities

Today, millions of children around the world have been left alone - like Kevin in a very famous film Home - but this time in front of a small phone screen. This form of digital isolation can be more dangerous than any physical disadvantage that endangers the child's good. Except for a child in such circumstances, it was ignored during a growth phase with a smartphone or tablet when it is necessary to create face-to-face communication communication skills, creating a healthy self-image and understanding the feelings of others, there is a greater risk than delayed language and spoiled communication. This can cause psychological disturbances, weak social interaction, and an early feeling of loneliness. This paper confirms the use of mobile phones on the development of children within the specific reference of the Arab world and examines the potential effects, where children are often made aware of media content that do not reflect their culture or meet their needs. Lack of purposeful local presentations, in association with commercial advertising directed on children, essentially fuel consumerism and shape their identity and self-value. It raises the question that is suppressed: what are our children seeing? Who is shaping childhood discourse in Arab world?Drawing on an interdisciplinary approach to media studies and child psychology, this contribution asks to create a new media environment-educational, human-focused and safe-who restores the right to real communication of the child, to hear and understand. The phrase phone alone, as we propose to describe this phenomenon, is not the only drama on words, but an accurate description of reality we live daily, where guidance is absent, and screen dialogues, relationships and human heat replaces that our children need so deeply.