A Qualitative Study on Expressed Views of Parents Regarding the Use of Mobile Phones and its Impact on Mental Health among their Children in Selected Urban Areas in Mangalore Taluk

Developments in mobile technology have been rapid in recent year and youth have always been keen to grasp the opportunities offered by new technologies, especially the mobile phones. In this context the researcher is interested to study regarding the parents’ opinion about their child's mobile phone use and how it affects the child's mental health. Aims & Objectives:

To assess the parents view about the use of mobile phone by their children.

To assess the impact of mobile phones on children's mental health.

Qualitative enquiry by grounded theory design using In-depth interview, field notes and observation. Analysis and interpretation is done by open coding, axial coding and selective coding followed by theory development.

From the analysis of the data, concepts were derived from the parent's opinion about children using mobile phones and its impact on their mental health. The major concepts are Decreased parent child relationship, maladaptive behaviour, deviated social relationships, and decreased scholastic performance and Stress. From these concepts the following theory was formulated The excessive non - overseen use of mobile phones may lead to decreased parent child relationship, maladaptive behaviour, deviated social relationship and decreased scholastic performance, which will alter the stress level of the child there by leading to altered mental health.

The results of the study suggest that the increased use of mobile phones can lead to altered mental health in children. The study concludes that the excessive non- overseen use of mobile phones may lead to decreased parent child relationship, maladaptive behaviour, deviated social relationship and decreased scholastic performance, which will alter the stress level of the child there by leading to altered mental health.