Nearly three months back, Dr Ajay Dudhane of Anandvan de-addiction centre came across a case of 14-year-old boy who had damaged nine mobile phones and two television sets after his parents tried to limit his access to cellphones. This case and several other similar cases prompted him to start a 'screen de-addiction' centre in Pune.
For the last ten years, Dr Dudhane has been running Anandvan de-addiction centre in Pune's Chandannagar area which treats addiction cases of all sorts. However, he observed that cases of the internet and television addiction kept increasing alarmingly. It was then he decided to open the 'screen de-addiction' centre at Tilak road.
"It's not just limited to mobile phones but television too. Thus, we are calling it a screen de-addiction centre. We have observed that smaller the screen, bigger is the addiction," Dr Dudhane told DNA.
Before starting the screen de-addiction centre, Dr Dudhane and his team did a survey and found that the screen addiction is growing not just among students but also among women and senior citizens.
"We carried out a survey of 275 people and we found that addiction varies with age groups. Nearly 23 per cent youngsters between 16 to 22 years are addicted to Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and Whatsapp while around 48 per cent housewives are addicted to social media sites like Facebook," he said.
"Mobile phones have made the communication easier, but excess use of the phones — mostly for other purposes than calling — has made users isolated," he added.
According to the survey, many addicted people are turning violent and is affecting them physically, mentally as well as socially.
"Such type of behaviour is found among people addicted to alcohol and drugs. Therefore, we thought of coming up with the de-addiction centre for screen-addicted people," he said.
The screen de-addiction centre has Out Patient Department (OPD) at Tilak Road where initial screening and counselling will be carried out. "We have three doctors at the centre who will be counselling people. Serious cases which need admission will be referred to the centre at Chandannagar," he said.
The administration of the decade-old centre at Chandannagar has come up with a new ward dedicated for cases with screen de-addiction. "At this ward, we have made an arrangement of 15 beds and will treat serious cases of addiction," he said.