Mom Shoots Her Kids' iPhones In An Extreme Step To Stop Screen Addiction

A recent video has been making the rounds on the Internet, as videos often do, but this time it's a video of a mom with a gun, and a couple of iPhones that didn't stand a chance. In the nearly three-minute video that has been uploaded to YouTube, a mom quite literally shot her kids' iPhones to temper her kids' obsession with their phones. The mom can be seen holding a shotgun and pointing aim at a few iPhones on a log that were presumably used by her kids, now formerly used by her kids, and firing away as the phones get blown to pieces.

Before pulling the trigger, the mom makes an announcement that explains why she is taking such measures. "I hereby denounce the effects that social media [has] on my children," she said. "Their disobedience and their disrespect."

And boom, off goes the shotgun.

The person filming appears to be aiding the mom, by picking up the pieces of what used to be the functioning phones and placing them on a log, so the mom could smash the remaining pieces with a sledgehammer. And smash away she did. "My children's lives are more important to me, than any electronic on this earth," she continued. "I refuse to have them influenced in negative ways, contacting people they don't know, being involved in drama they don't need to be in, and being in trouble in school for having phones out."

Whew.

This mom's approach to tackling this issue may not be everyone's cup of tea, to say the least. In fact, the whole possibly hazardous scene — a shotgun, a sledgehammer, a dog running around, and three people (who appear to be the mom's children) standing nearby and cursing — is a lot to take in. But, whether you agree with the mom's method, the message rings true for a lot of parents: kids and teenagers should not live their lives on their phones.

It's the era of social media, digital media, texting, and extreme engagement in just about everything we do. A lot of our "human" interactions these days actually involve tweeting, texting, emojis and hitting "Like" on Facebook statuses. This modern technological form of communication has impacted the way adults communicate with one another, and for kids and teenagers, it has a significant impact with some troubling statistics.

While technology can be beneficial for young people, electronic media leads to cyber bullying, internet harassment and electronic aggression, a term that the CDC defines as all violence that happens electronically. According to the CDC, research shows that young people who are victimized online are also likely to be victimized offline.

And teenagers are quite frequently online. A 2015 Pew Research study found that 92 percent of teens reported going online daily, with more than half of those teens reporting to go online several times a day. Facebook has shown to be the most popular social media platform with 71 percent of teens using it. It's clear why screen addiction in young people has been a popular and important topic of discussion recently. And, with some research suggesting links between social media use and poorer sleep quality, lower self-esteem and anxiety in young people, it's understandable why parents have expressed their concerns — whether its with a shotgun or just with mandatory no-screen time.