Excessive Mobile Phone Use and Executive Functioning among Children Aged 6-12 Years in Hyderabad, India

Mobile phones are now a routine part of middle childhood, yet Indian evidence on how their use relates to children's cognition is limited. This cross-sectional study examined whether daily mobile-phone use is associated with attention, working memory and problem-solving in children aged 6-12 years, and whether parental mediation and educational content moderate these associations. Eighty children from eight English-medium private and government-aided schools in Hyderabad were classed from parent reports as low (<60 min/day), moderate (60-120 min/day) or excessive (>120 min/day) users and completed the Attention Network Test-Child version, Digit Span, the Corsi Block-Tapping Test and Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices. Mean use was 103.8 min/day, and videos and games made up about 95% of reported time. After controlling for age, sleep and socio-economic status, excessive users showed poorer executive control (d = 1.04), shorter backward digit (d = -0.93) and Corsi spans (d = -0.83) and lower reasoning scores (d = -1.47) than low users; alerting and orienting did not differ. Parental mediation weakened only the association between use and backward digit span. Heavy, mainly recreational phone use was associated with weaker executive functioning; longitudinal research is needed to establish direction.