Giving your child a smartphone is like "giving them a gram of cocaine", a top addiction therapist has warned.
一位顶级的瘾症治疗师警告称，给孩子一部智能手机好比“给他们一克可卡因”。
Harley Street rehab clinic specialist Mandy Saligari said screen time is too often overlooked as a potential vehicle for addiction in young people.
哈利街戒瘾所的专家曼迪·萨利嘉里说，屏幕时间也是让年轻人上瘾的潜在媒介，但常被人们忽视。
"I always say to people, when you're giving your kid a tablet or a phone, you're really giving them a bottle of wine or a gram of coke," she said.
她表示：“我经常对人们说，当你给孩子平板电脑或手机时，其实你是给了他们一瓶酒或者一克可卡因。”
"Why do we pay so much less attention to those things than we do to drugs and alcohol when they work on the same brain impulses?"
“平板电脑和手机能给大脑带来与毒品和酒精同样的刺激，但为什么与毒品和酒精相比，我们对它们的关注会少那么多呢？”

Her comments follow news that children as young as 13 are being treated for addiction to digital technology - with a third of British children aged 12-15 admitting they do not have a good balance between screen time and other activities.
此前有新闻称，接受数字技术上瘾治疗的孩子年龄低至13岁。英国12到15岁的孩子中，有1/3的人承认他们没有在屏幕时间和其他活动之间保持良好平衡。
"When people tend to look at addiction, their eyes tend to be on the substance or thing – but really it's a pattern of behavior that can manifest itself in a number of different ways," Ms Saligari said, naming food obsessions, self-harm and sexting as examples.
萨利嘉里女士拿食物上瘾、自我伤害和色情短信举例说：“当人们关注上瘾时，总是把焦点放在实质性的事物上面，但其实这是一种行为模式，可以以不同的方式表现出来。”
Concern has grown recently over the number of young people seen to be sending or receiving pornographic images, or accessing age inappropriate content online through their devices.
近来，人们越来越关注通过手机发送或接收色情图片、或者在网络上浏览与年龄不相符的内容的年轻人数量。
Ofcom figures suggest more than four in ten parents of 12-15 year-olds find it hard to control their children's screen time. Even three and four year olds consume an average of six and half hours of internet time per week, according to the broadcasting regulators.
此外，英国通信管理局的数据显示，12岁到15岁孩子的父母中，超过四成发现控制孩子的屏幕时间很困难。据该机构的数据，甚至连三四岁的幼儿每周上网时间平均都在6.5小时。