Practice APSC Mains answer writing on mobile phones and child socialisation, and the evolution of Assamese language from Charyapada to Orunodoi with PYQs.
Question 1: Mobile Phones and the Socialisation of Children
GS-I | Indian Society
Question:
“Child cuddling is now being replaced by mobile phones. Discuss its impact on the socialization of children.”
150 Words | 10 Marks
This is a UPSC CSE Mains 2023 GS-I Previous Year Question, making it particularly useful for both UPSC and APSC aspirants.
Approach
The expression “child cuddling” should not be interpreted literally only as physical affection. It represents the wider world of parental attention, conversation, storytelling, play and emotional responsiveness through which a child experiences primary socialisation.
The answer should therefore establish the contrast:
Human Interaction → Social & Emotional Learning
versus
Excessive Screen Substitution → Reduced Real-World Interaction
At the same time, avoid presenting technology as inherently harmful. The problem is not the presence of technology, but its replacement of age-appropriate human interaction.
Introduction
Socialisation is the process through which children learn language, behaviour, values, emotions and the norms required to participate in society. In early childhood, parents and caregivers are the most important agents of this process. When mobile phones increasingly replace conversation, play and physical affection, they can alter the quality of a child’s social learning.
Main Body
Why is this shift taking place?
Busy family schedules and changing work patterns can reduce the time available for sustained parent-child interaction. Nuclear households may also have fewer grandparents or extended-family caregivers around the child.
At the same time, phones are increasingly used as a convenient way to keep children occupied or calm. Children also imitate adult behaviour: when parents remain frequently engaged with screens, digital devices quickly become normalised within family life.
Impact on emotional bonding: Responsive human interaction helps children learn security, affection and emotional regulation. When screens repeatedly substitute for such interactions, opportunities for emotional bonding may reduce.
Communication and empathy: Face-to-face interaction teaches a child to recognise tone, facial expressions, gestures and emotions. Excessive solitary screen engagement can displace precisely these experiences.
Social skills: Cooperative play teaches sharing, negotiation, patience, teamwork and conflict resolution. A screen cannot fully reproduce the complexity of spontaneous interaction with siblings and peers.
Family and cultural transmission: Families are important spaces through which stories, customs, language and values pass from one generation to another. Reduced interaction with parents and elders can weaken this everyday transmission.
Risk of isolation: If digital entertainment consistently replaces outdoor play and friendships, children may have fewer opportunities to build confidence in real-world social settings.
WHO emphasises interactive non-screen activities such as reading, storytelling, singing and play with caregivers during early childhood. UNICEF guidance similarly stresses that screens should not replace play, interaction or family routines.
Balanced Perspective
Technology itself is not the enemy.
Age-appropriate digital content can support learning, creativity, communication and digital literacy. Shared viewing can even become interactive when parents discuss what the child is watching.
The relevant distinction is therefore:
Use of Technology ≠ Substitution of Relationships
The objective should be balanced and supervised digital exposure rather than complete technological exclusion.
Value Addition
A simple diagram can make the answer more effective:
Human Interaction
↓
Language + Empathy + Emotional Security + Social Skills
↓
Healthy Socialisation
Whereas:
Excessive Screen Substitution
↓
Reduced Conversation + Play + Family Interaction
↓
Weaker Social Learning
A useful phrase for the conclusion is:
“Technology should supplement childhood, not substitute relationships.”
Model Answer
Socialisation is the process through which children acquire language, values, emotional responses and social skills. Traditionally, close interaction with parents and caregivers forms the foundation of this process. Increasing substitution of such interaction by mobile phones can therefore affect a child’s social development.
Reduced face-to-face communication may weaken opportunities for emotional bonding and for learning non-verbal cues, empathy and conversation. Excessive screen engagement can also displace cooperative play through which children learn sharing, negotiation and conflict resolution. Lower interaction with parents and grandparents may further weaken transmission of family values, language and cultural traditions. When screens replace outdoor play and friendships, they may also encourage social isolation.
However, technology can support learning, creativity and wider exposure when content is age-appropriate and adults remain involved.
Thus, the solution lies in responsive parenting, screen-free family time, outdoor and peer play, parental digital literacy and age-appropriate limits. Technology should supplement rather than substitute human interaction.
Conclusion
Healthy childhood socialisation ultimately depends on relationships.
Digital technology will remain part of children’s lives, but the objective should be to preserve the conversation, affection, play and shared experiences through which children learn how to understand both themselves and others.
Similar UPSC & APSC Mains Questions
UPSC CSE Mains 2023 – GS-I:
“Child cuddling is now being replaced by mobile phones. Discuss its impact on the socialization of children.” This is the exact UPSC PYQ used for today’s practice.
UPSC CSE Mains 2024 – GS-I:
A related question examined how social media-induced Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) contributes to depression and loneliness among youth, reflecting UPSC’s continuing interest in the social consequences of digital technology.
APSC CCE Mains 2022 – GS-IV:
“What, in your opinion, has been the impact of the rise of nuclear families on family as an institution for inculcating values?”
APSC CCE Mains 2023 – GS-IV:
“Social media has not only endangered our social fabric, it has also led to an erosion of values. Examine the statement.”
The preparation takeaway is clear: candidates should study family, children, socialisation and digital technology as interconnected themes, rather than as separate topics.
Question 2: Evolution of the Assamese Language and Formation of Regional Identity (Important APSC Mains Answer Writing Topic)
GS-V | Assam History & Culture
Question:
“Language is not merely a medium of communication, but the primary vehicle of cultural preservation and collective consciousness.” Trace the historical evolution of the Assamese language—from the Charyapadas and the Neo-Vaishnavite movement to the Orunodoi era—and analyse its role in shaping a cohesive regional identity.
Approach
The question has two distinct demands.
First, trace the historical evolution of Assamese through important stages rather than writing a general history of Assamese literature.
Second, explain how this linguistic development contributed to a shared cultural and regional consciousness.
A useful structure is:
Charyapada → Medieval Vernacular Culture → Neo-Vaishnavism → Buranji Tradition → Orunodoi & Print → Linguistic Consciousness → Regional Identity
The final part must also recognise that Assam is multilingual and multi-ethnic. A cohesive Assamese regional identity should therefore be presented as inclusive rather than linguistically exclusionary.
Introduction
Language does more than enable communication. It carries stories, beliefs, historical memory and shared ways of understanding the world. Assamese evolved over centuries through literary traditions, religious movements, political interaction and, eventually, print culture. In this process, it became one of the important vehicles through which a broader regional consciousness developed in Assam.
Main Body
Charyapadas – Early Linguistic Foundations: The Buddhist Charyapadas, generally placed within the early medieval period, occupy an important position in discussions on the early evolution of eastern Indo-Aryan languages. Assamese literary scholarship and university curricula treat them as an important early stage in the history of Assamese literature, although their linguistic inheritance is shared and debated across several eastern Indian languages.
Their significance for an APSC answer lies less in claiming exclusive ownership and more in showing that the roots of Assamese literary expression extend deep into the eastern Indian linguistic tradition.
Neo-Vaishnavite Movement – Language Reaches the People: The transformation became much more visible during the age of Srimanta Sankardeva and Madhavdeva.
Through devotional literature, Kirtan, Borgeet, Ankiya Naat, Bhaona and related traditions, vernacular literary culture acquired a much wider social reach. Assamese and Brajavali literary expression allowed religious and ethical ideas to circulate beyond narrowly learned circles.
The institutions of the Naamghar and Satra were equally significant. They became spaces where religion, music, performance, discussion and community life came together. Scholarship on Assam’s Neo-Vaishnavite institutions has highlighted their enduring role in cultural integration and the formation of Assamese identity.
Language thus became something people did not merely read—it was sung, performed, heard and collectively experienced.
Ahom Period and the Buranji Tradition: The Buranjis added another dimension: historical memory.
The chronicles originated in the Tai-Ahom tradition and, over time, Buranjis were also composed in Assamese. They recorded administration, diplomacy, warfare and political developments and helped preserve a documentary memory of Assam’s past.
The increasing use of Assamese within this political and documentary sphere also reflected the long process through which different communities interacted within a wider regional society.
The Orunodoi Era – Language Enters the Modern Public Sphere: A decisive change came with print.
Orunodoi, first published from Sivasagar in 1846, was the first Assamese news magazine and helped open a new phase in Assamese journalism and modern prose. It carried material on religion, science, general knowledge and contemporary affairs and contributed to the development of a modern Assamese reading public.
This development was especially significant against the colonial language controversy. Assamese had been displaced by Bengali in courts and schools in 1836. The work of Assamese intellectuals and American Baptist missionaries contributed to the campaign that eventually saw Assamese restored to courts and government education in 1873.
Language consequently became not only a literary medium but also an issue of public assertion and cultural self-definition.
Role in Shaping Regional Identity
Creation of a common cultural sphere: Literature, devotional performances, Naamghars and later print helped people across different areas participate in overlapping cultural traditions.
Preservation of collective memory: The Buranjis, devotional literature and oral-performing traditions preserved historical and cultural experiences across generations.
Social integration: The Neo-Vaishnavite movement created institutions and cultural forms that could bring different social groups into common community spaces.
Modern public consciousness: Orunodoi and the growth of Assamese print helped create a reading public capable of discussing language, education, society and Assam’s place under colonial rule.
Linguistic self-assertion: The struggle surrounding Assamese in the nineteenth century strengthened the association between language and regional consciousness.
Critical Dimension
Assamese identity should not be treated as completely homogeneous.
Assam has always been home to numerous ethnic communities and languages. Therefore, regional identity cannot sustainably be built by equating “Assamese” exclusively with one linguistic or ethnic community.
The stronger conception is one in which Assamese serves as an important shared cultural language while Bodo, Karbi, Mising, Rabha, Dimasa and other indigenous linguistic traditions are simultaneously protected and allowed to flourish.
Regional cohesion is strengthened by accommodation, not homogenisation.
Contemporary Relevance
The challenge today is no longer merely preservation in print.
Assamese must have a strong presence in digital publishing, Unicode-based communication, education, translation, archives, audio-visual media and emerging language technologies.
Digitisation of manuscripts, wider availability of Assamese books, promotion of literature and performing arts, and support for younger writers and creators can help transmit the language to future generations.
At the same time, protecting Assam’s wider linguistic diversity will ensure that cultural preservation remains inclusive.
Assam-Centric Value Addition
A compact timeline can make this answer visually distinctive:
Charyapada
Early linguistic-literary heritage
↓
Sankardeva–Madhavdeva
Vernacular devotion + literature + performance
↓
Naamghar–Satra
Community participation and cultural transmission
↓
Buranjis
Historical and political memory
↓
Orunodoi, 1846
Print + modern prose + public sphere
↓
Language Assertion, 1836–1873
↓
Modern Assamese Regional Consciousness
Model Answer
Language preserves a society’s memory, values and shared cultural experiences. Assamese evolved through a long interaction of literary, religious, political and print traditions, gradually becoming an important basis of regional consciousness.
The Charyapadas represent an early linguistic-literary stage relevant to the evolution of Assamese and other eastern Indo-Aryan languages. In the medieval period, Srimanta Sankardeva and Madhavdeva greatly expanded vernacular cultural expression through devotional literature, Borgeet, drama and performance. Naamghars and Satras transformed these traditions into shared community institutions, giving language a powerful integrative role.
During the Ahom period, the Buranji tradition preserved political and historical memory; while initially written in Tai-Ahom, Assamese increasingly became an important language of chronicle writing.
The publication of Orunodoi from Sivasagar in 1846 marked the emergence of modern Assamese print culture, journalism and prose. Its importance grew during the nineteenth-century struggle for restoration of Assamese in education and administration after its displacement by Bengali in 1836.
Thus, Assamese became more than a means of communication—it connected literature, faith, memory and public consciousness.
However, Assamese regional identity must remain inclusive of Assam’s multiple ethnic and linguistic traditions. Its future strength lies in combining cultural rootedness with linguistic plurality.
Conclusion
From early literary traces and the devotional world of Sankardeva to the historical memory of the Buranjis and the modernising influence of Orunodoi, Assamese developed alongside the society that used it.
Its greatest contribution has been its ability to create a shared cultural conversation across generations.
The future of Assamese identity therefore lies not in cultural uniformity, but in an Assamese public sphere that remains confident in its heritage and inclusive of Assam’s remarkable diversity.
Similar UPSC & APSC Mains Questions
APSC CCE Mains 2020 – GS-I:
“The Neo-Vaishnavite Movement played the most significant role in laying the foundation of a broader society in the Brahmaputra Valley of Assam.” Elucidate this statement.
This is the closest APSC PYQ because it directly links Sankardeva’s movement with social integration and the emergence of a wider Assamese cultural sphere.
UPSC CSE Mains 2016 – GS-I:
“Has the formation of linguistic states strengthened the cause of Indian unity?”
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