You might be a whiz at checking your Facebook updates, but are you as attentive when it comes to your kids?

According to a recent Swedish study, tech addiction has left all kids feeling a bit left out. Sweden has the second highest smartphone adoption rates in western Europe at 63% of adults.

Out of the 521 parents surveyed, 33% admitted that their kids were sick of them spending so much time using devices like smartphones and tablets.

And if that wasn't disturbing enough, 20% of parents in Stockholm and the surrounding suburbs admitted to had lost their kids before because they were paying attention to their phones.

According to Roland Sennerstam, a Swedish pediatrician, this addiction could incur a lot of developmental damage:
Of course it will affect their emotional development . . . [Also] I encourage parents to use language during their daily activities, and give their children new words all the time. If parents are more interested in using their mobile phones, I think it will have a bad effect on the language development of their children.
Other pediatricians think these distractions are just part of today's parenting. But it's still pretty alarming to know that some parents are more attentive towards gadgets instead of their own kids.

[The Guardian]