MADURAI

Apart from the personal, professional and social issues that cause stress to the police personnel every day, the advent of smart phone and social media has added to their mental pressure, says Registrar of National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), K. Sekar.

While the smart phones were distracting the policemen from their professional duty, the social media that immediately pounced on individual police personnel for their trivial mistakes were putting undue stress on them, Dr. Sekar told The Hindu.

He was here to participate in the inaugural function of Well Being programme organised for the first batch of police personnel from Madurai rural district unit.

The policemen became addicted to browsing the social media, especially WhatsApp, while on duty. “Be it during a law and order duty or bandobust duty or traffic regulation, many policemen are seen fiddling something on their smartphone screens. This has become an addiction like smoking or drinking,” he said.

Dr. Sekar said such distraction caused stress to the policemen as they often failed to perform their duty effectively.

Besides, the social media targeting the policemen with their comments and photographs on dereliction of duty, failures like not wearing helmet or talking on phones while on duty caused more stress.

The disproportionate criticism on social media against the police, including comments on their pot-bellies, not knowing that it is a lifestyle disorder or age-related problem went viral. “A wrong-doing of an individual that goes viral in social media causes pain to the entire force,” he added.

Dr. Sekar wanted the police to find a solution to relieve the police of addiction to technology. The police force should be educated on focussing on the duty at hand instead of wasting time on mobile phones. He wanted to put a reasonable restriction on usage of mobile phones during duty hours.