PETALING JAYA, June 5 — Actress and social media influencer Elfira Loy has been criticised for buying a smartphone specifically for her infant son Muhamad Rayyan Khalaf Muhamad Faris.
In a sponsored post on Instagram, the 26-year-old revealed that she purchased the device so that Muhamad Rayyan, who is eight months old, would not try to use her phone instead.
“(My son is) going to be eight months old tomorrow! I got him an iPhone so he won’t try to use mummy’s phone,” she wrote underneath a picture of them watching a video on the smartphone.
Elfira said that her son only uses the phone to watch videos for 15 minutes at a time before he starts getting bored, adding that he prefers playtime with his mummy instead.
Many were concerned that the Qalesya actress was setting a bad example for other parents to follow and warned that infants should not be given too much screen time to avoid addiction and speech delay.
“I hope you just wrote that caption for marketing purposes only because I feel bad for babies who are given gadgets at such an early age,” said one follower.
“If they’re still young, don’t give them gadgets like this or it’ll end up being the only thing that they’re interested in. Let him play with more age-appropriate toys,” wrote another.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children younger than 18 months avoid using any screens except for video-chatting, as prolonged exposure to screens can have a negative impact on a child’s language and literacy development.
