How
to Help Your Kids Have a Healthy Relationship with Technology
Don't give up the fight for conversation
In her latest book, author, technology
critic, and clinical psychologist Sherry Turkle tears our preferred modes of
communication a new one. The central argument of Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk In A Digital Age is that the
easy, streamlined, emotionally risk-free technologies that entertain and keep
people “in touch” without human interaction have diminished our capacity for
empathy and self-reflection. Turkle is not just your gouchy friend from high
school who won’t use Facebook because she’s “old school,” either. Her thesis is
thoroughly researched and supported by legit academic studies suggesting not
only that our smart phones are turning us into a——-; they are also making us
less happy.
Turkle looks at how the
unintended consequences of constant connectivity with little human connection
have sullied our interactions in the areas of work, school, and our
communities; and have removed opportunities for therapeutic solitude. But no
aspect of the emotional distance and dissatisfaction wrought by the lure of
social media and digital communication is as bleak as Turkle’s assessment of
how our lack of conversation has impacted family life. To add insult to injury,
she doesn’t even blame the Kids These Days. She blames the parents.
Fortunately, she has a couple of very simple solutions for how to break the
cycle. (They just happen to be gut-wrenchingly difficult to implement.)
How Technology Is
Screwing Up Our Kids
Computers simulate
human interaction; but they can’t replace it. The predictability and
“friction-free” nature of virtual worlds is compelling to children, but it
doesn’t teach them about relationships — conversations do.
·
“Children need to learn what complex
human feelings and human ambivalence look like,” Turkle writes. “And they need
other people to respond to their own expressions of that complexity. These are
the most precious things that people give to children in conversation as they
grow up.”
·
Children need to learn, through
conversations with their parents, the difference between a problem and a
catastrophe. Parental attention to the small ups and downs of childhood “helps
children learn what is and is not an emergency and what children can handle on
their own,” Turkle writes. “Parental inattention can mean that, to a child,
everything feels urgent.”
·
In interview after interview, Turkle
found that kids longed for more conversations with not only their parents, but
also their peers. Their parents and peers were distracted by electronic
devices, so these disappointed kids turned to their own screens for
stimulation.
What You Can Do With
This
·
Take the “Talking Cure.” Talk to
your kids, even if they are pre-verbal. From Turkle’s book: “…instead of doing
your email as you push your daughter in her stroller, talk to her. Instead of
putting a digital tablet in your son’s baby bouncer, read to him and chat about
the book.”
·
As your kids get older, make family
conversations a regular part of every day. If you think back, this is probably
what you originally envisioned when you bought that dinner table.
Boredom Is a Crucial
Ingredient of Childhood
With all the
connected devices available to our kids (and ourselves), there is no reason to
experience “downtime.” We whip out our phones during any lull in activity, and
therefore teach our kids to do the same. But we are robbing them of
opportunities for flights of imagination and development of their sense of
self.
·
Psychoanalyst Erik Erikson posits
that “children thrive when they are given time and stillness.” The “shiny
objects,” as Turkle calls technological distractors, interrupt that stillness.
·
“When children grow up with time
alone with their thoughts, they feel a certain ground under their feet,” Turkle
writes. “Their imaginations bring them comfort. If children always have
something outside of themselves to respond to, they don’t build up this
resource.” What they build up instead? Anxiety. Lot and lots of anxiety.
·
According to neuroscience research,
“it is only when we are alone with our thoughts — not reacting to external
stimuli — that we engage that part of the brain’s basic infrastructure devoted
to building up a sense of our stable autobiographical past.” In other words, we
figure out who we are. Turkle compares this process to its digital equivalent:
creating online profiles that make us look cool and successful.
What You Can Do With
This
·
Instead of screen-based play, get
your kid involved with manipulating physical objects. “Whereas screen activity
tends to rev kids up, the concrete worlds of modeling clay, finger paints, and
building blocks slow them down,” Turkle writes. “The physicality of these
materials … offers a very real resistance that gives children time to think, to
use their imaginations, to make up their own worlds.”
·
Establish a screen time policy for
your kids and stick to it. While you’re at it, establish one for yourself.
Consider sending your kid to a device-free summer camp.
·
Go outside.
Parents Are the Worst
Whereas most screeds against the
scourge of digital technology focus on “those d— kids,” Turkle puts the onus
squarely on the parents. In citations from research, anecdotes, and interviews,
she paints modern parents as helpless against the siren song of social media
notifications, work emails, and at GIFs, all to the detriment of our kids.
·
According to Turkle, “several
‘generations” of children have grown up expecting parents and caretakers to be
only half there. Many parents text at breakfast and dinner, and parents and
babysitters ignore children when they take them to playgrounds and parks.”
·
Ignoring kids in favor of devices
fails to model empathy and they’re less likely to learn the skills of creating
and maintaining relationships, which are learned through physical interactions
with each other.
What You Can Do With
This
·
Create a “sacred space” — a
device-free zone in your home where conversation or solitude will not be
interrupted. You might want to keep the cookies and beer in this area lest no one ever visit
there.
·
Be the grownup and put your d— phone
away.
No comments:
Post a Comment