Mother's Note About Son's Screen Addiction Found On Train Sparks Debate In China

An emotional message written on a paper trash bag has touched many people across mainland China. A mother, feeling upset about her teenage child's addiction to electronic devices, wrote down her worries while travelling on a high-speed train. Days later, a university student found the note in the same seat, and the message quickly spread online, reported South China Morning Post.

A female traveller from Ningbo, Zhejiang province, wrote this note on October 29. She left it in a trash bag, which the cleaning staff did not remove in time. Two days later, a university student found the same bag.

The mother said in her message that something her 14-year-old son said that morning made her very uneasy. She was wondering whether all teenagers fall into the habit of using mobile phones and playing games. They did not reveal the gender of their child.

The 21-year-old student brought the bag home and later shared the incident on social media. She said that during a train journey last year, she too had written her thoughts on a dustbin bag in a similar manner, so she could understand the mother's problem very well.

She also said that she is neither working nor a mother, so she cannot approach this situation as a complete parent. Still, she felt she could offer a different perspective from a child's experience.

The student told that during her teenage days, she loved TV shows, novels and games. Now even after thinking about it, she doesn't understand why she was so attracted towards gadgets, but she feels that maybe in those days all this was special for her.

Mobile phones were not allowed in school, but she used to bring the phone secretly. Once her father caught her, but she did not tell this to anyone. She said that her father's calm behaviour made her reflect on her actions and she never again took her phone to school with a secret.

Her parents also changed their habits. They used to read books instead of looking at the phone at night. This also helped her in reducing her phone usage. 

She believed that the parents own example and conversation-both together-could be the most effective approach, although she did not know whether this approach would be helpful to the mother who wrote the note.