Family comes up with hilarious plan to make their 5-year-old boy give up his phone addiction

Living in a tech-driven world has its perks, making daily tasks easier, but it also has downsides, especially when it leads to gadget addiction. Smartphone addiction is a growing concern affecting both adults and kids. A Chinese family found a unique solution for their 5-year-old son's smartphone addiction, according to the South China Morning Post.

To combat their son's phone addiction, the family drew dark circles under his eyes while he slept, convincing him that excessive phone use caused them. The entire family participated, with the mother feigning concern and an uncle pretending to be a doctor to give a fake consultation.

The unnamed kid reportedly started playing around with his parents' phone in recent months, causing the family to worry that the youngster was getting addicted to the device. The kid's aunt, whose surname is Wang, came up with the plan to trick the boy into giving up the harmful habit. All they had to do was convince the kid that using a phone for long hours was taking a toll on his health and appearance. To draw in the visibly noticeable dark circles, the boy's mother used a dark shade from her eye shadow palette while the kid was sleeping.

The boy woke up to shock and horror with his fake eye bags and dark circles. Then his mother informed him that if he continued to play on the mobile phone, his eyes would be damaged. "He cried and was very frightened. At first, he thought it was because he had not completely woken up, but later he came to believe his mother's warning and began to reflect on his phone use," his aunt said, per the news outlet. The mother did her absolute best to convince her son by lightly touching his dark circles and asking him whether it was painful. "No, it's not painful," the boy said. "Then you should have enough rest. Let's see whether it will be relieved within a day," the mother said while giggling, in a viral video that was posted on a Chinese social media site.

Wang's husband, who was playing the role of the fake doctor, gave the boy some "medical" advice and told him to use some eye drops as a temporary treatment. "We will do further treatment if they don't disappear in several days," the uncle told the kid. Thankfully, the kid did not recognize the doctor as his uncle as he gave his consultation over the telephone. The trick was effective in the end, according to Aunt Wang, as the boy stopped using the mobile phone the very next day. A survey carried out by Wuhan University, which was released in April 2023, addressed how phone addiction among youngsters is "nearly out of control." The survey concluded that 70% of phone time was spent watching videos and the rest on games, per the outlet.