Ahmedabad/Vadodara: The phone is the first thing we reach for when we feel bored or restless. This distraction worked well for 14-year-old Ritu (name changed) also, till one reel turned into 10. And, before she knew it, she began spending her entire time after school holed up in her room, scrolling endlessly and jumping from reels to chats to videos.Alarmed by her withdrawal, her parents called for help.“When we spoke to her, we realised that it wasn’t just boredom keeping her glued to her phone. She had changed schools recently and felt alienated by her classmates. She tried to replace her real friends with virtual ones and remained ‘busy’ online so that she did not have to think about her day,” said Geetaba Gohil, a counsellor with Abhayam women’s helpline, which handled the case in Ahmedabad last week.
Are you scrolling away your feelings?
Digital comfort, emotional escapeAs AI chatbots become better at holding conversations and we spend more time behind screens, Ritu’s case forces us to ask: are we merely seeking entertainment, or escaping feelings we no longer know how to handle? And, what happens to our capacity for human connection along the way?These questions were the starting point of a study conducted by Gauri Nagyal and Smita Pandey from School of Behavioural Forensics at National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU) to see how internet use may be linked to emotional wellbeing.The duo studied 316 college students, with nearly equal numbers of girls and boys, aged 18 to 25 from various universities in Gandhinagar. They looked at how often the students used the internet, how well they could recognise and express their emotions, their general health and ability to stay focused on the present.The study found a link between internet addiction and alexithymia, a term used to describe the difficulty recognising emotions and putting them into words. “Students who ranked higher on the alexithymia scale reported higher levels of internet use. They also reported greater psychological distress and lower mindfulness,” said Prof Pandey.
How internet and AI may be changing the way we think
How dependence can growThe crux of the study is the dual-regulatory model, researchers said. The first way through which the dependence can develop is emotions: people who struggle to understand their feelings may turn to the internet to cope with discomfort. For them, the screen becomes an easy escape, offering temporary distraction or relief. The second involves cognition: internet addiction makes it harder for people to stay focused on the present moment.Prof Pandey said increasing reliance on digital technology may also change how people show their feelings. Using technology mainly for comfort or emotional satisfaction can sometimes make a person appear less expressive, a condition psychologists call “blunted affect”. She added that online conversations often lack facial expressions, tone of voice and other signals that help people understand emotions during face-to-face interactions. Over time, this may make it harder for some people to read and respond to emotions in real-life conversations.The difficulty is not new. Punita Grover, a child and adolescent psychiatrist from Ahmedabad, said that even before the age of AI and the internet, alexithymia presented in different forms.“Patients expressed feelings through bodily symptoms such as body aches and headache instead of expressing the actual emotion or feeling. What AI and internet usage have done is aggravate it,” she said. A person may already be dealing with psychological difficulties and prolonged exposure to screens can make alexithymia more pronounced, she added.Grover said clinicians had also encountered children with delayed emotional, cognitive and language milestones in the period after Covid.
Making sense of alexithymia
Children need real-world cuesKids learn to read people through everyday cues: a change in facial expression, a reassuring touch, eye contact or a shift in someone’s voice.“When screens replace these interactions, children may struggle both to express their feelings and understand those of others,” Grover said.Rudresh Vyas, head of department of psychology at MTB College in Surat, said family life could also shape how much time children spend interacting with people rather than devices. In his view, children in larger joint families often have more opportunities to engage with relatives and learn social skills through everyday contact. When there are fewer people around at home, screens can become an easy way to fill the silence or pass the time.Developmental paediatrician Swati Vinchurkar, also based in Surat, said parents sometimes hand a phone to a child to keep them seated or quiet. But those quiet minutes can come at a cost if screens regularly replace play and interaction. “This can affect how children learn to communicate and take in the world around them, especially during the early years. Over time, these patterns may show up as difficulties in recognising and expressing emotions, such as alexithymia,” she said.But all is not lost. Vinchurkar said, “Reducing screen time and encouraging children to engage with their surroundings could help reduce the effects of excessive exposure, particularly in children younger than three.” However, she cautioned that addressing the difficulties could become harder as children grew older.Short videos, shrinking attentionThe concern is not confined to children who withdraw into their rooms. For many young people, the pull of the screen comes in the form of short videos that seem to offer a quick break but can consume hours.A separate study by students of department of statistics at Maharaja Sayajirao University (MSU) of Baroda surveyed 329 students about their short-video habits. A majority said they spent nearly three hours watching such content, which accounted for 60% of their total screen time.The study linked excessive short-video consumption with shorter attention spans, reduced concentration, sleep problems and difficulty engaging with longer-form content. One finding stood out: most respondents could not remember the last reel they had watched. Some also said they felt guilty or sad when they realised how much time they had spent scrolling.The next video is always a swipe away. And because each one is short, it is easy to lose track of time. A few minutes of downtime can turn into hours, leaving less time for reading, offline activities or simply being present with the people around us.
Experts speak on alexithymia
Keeping human skills aliveThe findings from the two studies point to a broader concern: technology may not only consume time but also shape how people regulate attention, process emotions, and connect with others. However, the NFSU study does not establish that alexithymia causes internet addiction. Instead, it suggests that heavy internet or AI use may sometimes signal difficulties with emotional self-regulation, rather than merely excessive screen time.The researchers acknowledged that the NFSU study had a limited sample drawn from one district, and that its findings could not be applied to everyone. “However, it indicates the scale of the problem and offers possible insights for psychologists, counsellors and parents,” said one of the researchers.As efforts intensify to make AI more human-like, experts caution that excessive dependence on technology may, in turn, affect human abilities and make them more machine-like.—With inputs by Yagnesh Mehta from SuratHelping children take a break from their phones
digital detox
An ‘e-fasting’ campaign in Anand district has reached more than 50,000 students across nearly 70 schools in five talukas.The campaign targets children aged seven to 18, encouraging them to stay away from their phones, spend more time with their families and go without their devices for six hours a day. Students take an oath as part of the effort to raise awareness about excessive mobile use.But the organisers say the real test begins when children get home.“At home, they see their parents hooked to their phones, and they slip back into the habit,” said Hasan Rana, head of the M Com department at Shree R P Arts, K B Commerce and Smt BCJ Science College, Khambhat, and director of the e-fasting project, Gujarat.“At times, I believe parents are more responsible,” he said, pointing out that children often copy the behaviour they see around them.Drawing a parallel with other behaviours that children observe at home, he added, “In the majority of families, if parents do not drink, kids also do not drink.”
