Down with Digital Addiction, New Book  Counsels

Yinka  Olatunbosun

Ouida House was packed with children and adults on Saturday, March 8, as Mazzi Odu unveiled her latest children book with an audacious title “Get Rid of Your Phone Mummy.” With beautiful illustrations executed by Adulphina Imuede, the eye-catching books were arranged on a centrepiece at the literary house in Ikeja. Parents seemed to have broken the tradition that “Saturdays are for Owanbes” in Lagos by spending some quality time with the author and the convener of Ake Arts and Book Festival, Lola Shoneyin who moderated a quick session with Odu. 

The event kicked off with a book reading session by the author, sparking conversations around digital addiction and the demands of motherhood—a timely topic on International Women’s Day.

The book launch sparked intergenerational discussions about parent-child relationships, offering insights into the book’s rationale and why parents and children worldwide can easily relate to the issues it raises.

Drawing upon personal experience, Odu tells the story of a young child Tobe whose mother is frequently on the phone. All efforts to have a decent conversation with her mother prove abortive until a superhuman intervention comes. Odu revealed that the momentum for this book was built when she had a power cut and was left to read a bedtime story to her daughter. The experience reinforced the need to be less dependent on digital devices as a substitute for parenting.

“I’ve drawn upon my own personal experience of heavy phone usage, and trying to balance heavy phone usage whilst caring and being present for a young child,” Odu said.

She admits that although the story is set in Lagos, it is a universal story that reflects the reality of city life. The absence of a father in the storytelling raised the question of whether the book was meant for single parents. Odu explained that the complexity of city life is often such that one parent is more visible in the household.

“I think digital addiction is an equal opportunities issue,” she continued. “I think we find it even with our grandmas and grandpas now, but after the child has read this book with the caregiver in their life, those sorts of conversations would have to be had.

“As parents, we should be mindful that just as we teach our children how to be through instruction, they learn how to walk or talk or eat by watching us. If they see us always glued to our phones, they will grow up to be adults and also glued to their devices.”

The author disclosed that the book, published by Ouida books, took at least nine months to be completed. And for the impact it is expected to have on the society at large, the wait is worthwhile.

“I think what I’m hoping the book will allow people to have is a notion of taking time and for pause,” she added. “I mean, statistics show that by the time your child is age 12, you would have spent 75% of the actual time span you will spend with your child, because if they become a teenager, a young adult, friends, hobbies, schooling and then university, they might move away from home, and then they become adults themselves, with their own careers, have children their own families. With each passage of time, you have less time with your child, so these opening 12 years or that we all potentially have, let’s try and make the most of them and have as much in real time experiences.”

Odu hopes that the book also sparks a mindshift in even corporate settings by creating family-friendly work policies to protect the family unit.

“I think it’s that opportunity again for let’s start having conversations on maybe even the way we work. Maybe the corporate capitalist system needs to become more compassionate, so that we have more space to spend time with our children, to read to our children to not feel so stressed that we have to keep checking and responding to business or work related emails. So I hope that the book offers conversation starters, obviously on a micro level, but even maybe on a macro level, maybe companies will think, ‘Oh, do we even allow for parents maybe a couple of days a week to go home early so you can read to your child.’”

She also spoke about the anti-social disposition of children who are weaned on digital addiction and how the society is being fragmented by this disconnect from normal human interactions before digital intrusion