By: Dr. Nasser Hussain Bukhari
Published By: ANI News Agency
Walk into any university canteen, school corridor or hostel room in Pakistan and you will see the same scene: heads bowed, thumbs moving, eyes lit by a small glowing screen. The smartphone has become the most constant companion of our students. We have grown so used to the sight that we no longer ask what it is doing to them.
The answer lies in a word we rarely use: neophilia. A neophile is a person who loves the new. Psychologists regard novelty-seeking as a healthy trait, the engine of curiosity and discovery. But it becomes a problem when newness itself is the attraction, when a person craves the next notification, trend or video not because it is valuable but because it is fresh. The smartphone is the perfect machine for this appetite. It delivers something new every few seconds, without effort and without end.
The neophile's habits are easy to recognise in our students. They are restless, unable to sit with a book or a lecture for twenty minutes without reaching for the phone. They fear missing out, so they check messages and feeds compulsively. They adopt trends uncritically, assuming whatever is viral must be worthwhile. Their attention is short, their patience thin, and depth bores them. Many define themselves by followers, likes and the image they present online. This is not curiosity. Curiosity asks, "Is this true?" Neophilia asks only, "What's next?"
The first casualty is learning. Real study requires sustained attention, and attention is exactly what constant switching destroys. A student who pauses every few minutes to check a message may need far longer to absorb the same material, and what is absorbed is shallow. Reading whole books has become rare. Assignments are assembled from quick searches and, increasingly, from AI tools, with little thought in between. Classroom lectures compete with screens under desks. Teachers across the country report the same complaint: students are present in body but absent in mind. Examination results, research quality and the ability to write a coherent paragraph all suffer when the mind is trained to consume fragments.
The damage extends to lifestyle. Late-night scrolling has pushed sleep to the margins of student life. Many young people go to bed with their phones and wake up reaching for them. Meals are eaten in silence over a screen, family gatherings are interrupted by notifications, and friendships that once meant long conversations have been reduced to emojis and reactions. Time that might have gone to sport, reading, prayer, hobbies or community work is quietly consumed. There is a financial side too, as students beg for newer models and costly data packages to keep up with peers, and parents stretch limited incomes to oblige. Worse, the constant display of curated lives online breeds envy and inadequacy. A student who compares an ordinary day to someone else's staged highlights often ends up feeling that his own life is not enough.
Health pays a heavy price as well. Prolonged screen use causes eye strain, headaches and dry eyes. Hours spent hunched over a handset lead to neck and back pain, sometimes called "text neck." Sleep deprivation weakens concentration, mood and immunity. Physical inactivity contributes to weight gain and weakened fitness in a generation that should be at its strongest. Mental health is no less affected. Researchers around the world have linked heavy social media use among young people with anxiety, low mood and loneliness. In Pakistan, where discussion of mental health still carries stigma, students struggling with these pressures often suffer in silence.
Parents are the first line of defence, and they must begin with example. A child cannot be told to put the phone away by a parent who is glued to his own. Families should agree on phone-free times, such as meals and the hour before bed, and keep devices out of bedrooms at night. Parents should delay giving expensive smartphones, and when they do, set clear limits together with their children rather than imposing them in anger. Conversation works better than confiscation. Talking honestly about how apps are designed to hold attention, and how online lives are staged, builds resilience. Above all, parents should give children something better to do: sport, books, time outdoors, responsibilities at home and their company.
Academia has an equally important role. Schools and universities should teach digital literacy as seriously as any subject, so that students understand algorithms, advertising and the habits these technologies cultivate. Institutions can create phone-free classrooms and libraries, and design assessments that reward depth, such as long essays, presentations and original projects, over copied material. Counselling services must be strengthened and mental health openly discussed. Teachers should be trained to use technology as a tool rather than a distraction, and to model the focused reading and thinking they ask of their students. Universities should also resist the temptation to chase every educational fad themselves, since adopting each new buzzword is neophilia in academic dress.
None of this means the smartphone is the enemy. It gives students access to knowledge, opportunity and income that earlier generations could only imagine. The remedy for neophilia is not neophobia but discernment: the habit of using technology deliberately instead of being used by it.
Pakistan cannot afford to ignore this quiet addiction. A nation's future is shaped in its classrooms, and a generation that cannot concentrate, sleep or sit in stillness will struggle to build anything lasting. The question every parent, teacher and student should learn to ask is a simple one: Am I using my phone, or is it using me?
