This gorilla is addicted to smartphones

Team Udayavani, Apr 21, 2022, 12:03 PM IST

Screen addiction is a type of behavioral addiction characterized by excessive or compulsive usage of screen devices such as computers or smartphones. It’s something that endures despite significant negative implications to one’s personal, social, or occupational functioning.

People of all ages are addicted to their smartphones in today’s world. Even young children as young as 4 or 5 years old can play games on their parents’ cellphones.

It is currently characterized as a recurring preoccupation that can impair a person’s vision and have negative physiological, psychological, and social effects.

Is screen addiction, however, limited to humans in the modern era?

Even animals are becoming glued to screens, as evidenced by this case from Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo.

Because of his smartphone addiction, a 16-year-old lowland gorilla at the zoo is on screen time out.

Amare, an eastern lowland gorilla at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, who is 188 kg, was evidently so engrossed on his phone that he didn’t notice when another gorilla charged him. His smartphone addiction has now cost him screen time.

After visitors showed him images and videos through the glass divider of his enclosure, the gorilla apparently became addicted to phones. Because of the addiction, the zoo had to put up a rope to keep people away from Amare’s enclosure’s glass wall.

Amare’s screen time is limited because he is distracted by bright displays, according to the zoo.

The zoo prefers that Amare spend more time with his mates than staring at mobile screens, according to Stephen Ross, director of the zoo’s Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes.