Technology and Parenting
“Sufficiently advance technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
The world has changed. And the change has been accelerated since COVID-19. Technology has become integrated into almost every aspect of our lives. This is undoubtedly a wonderful thing in many ways. Access to information, access to the world, and access to opportunity has never ever been so equal in this respect. Almost anyone in the world can search almost any topic and learn almost anything about it within the press of a few buttons, all from a magic portable device. This is mind-boggling.
It reminds me of this quote from Elon Musk, “If you go back a few hundred years, what we take for granted today would seem like magic – being able to talk to people over long distances, to transmit images, flying, accessing vast amounts of data like an oracle. These are all things that would have been considered magic a few hundred years ago.” How much our own connection to the outside world has been saved by technology over the last year? Social isolation has, to some degree, been reduced because of technology. School has still been possible for children, work has still been possible, families have been able to stay connected despite any and all geographical constraints.
In what has been for many a dark period, people have been able to maintain their engagement with the world through the magic of technology. I often reflect on the name ‘Zoom’; if I had polled people this time last year on who knew what it was, most people would have had no idea. Yet now, Zoom is a part of our everyday vocabulary, as is a Google Hangout, or for some Microsoft Teams. The adaption to these new technologies is astounding and has happened at almost every level of society, making it a truly shared experience. In many ways, technology is the thing that has kept our global society's wheels turning.
There have been pitfalls to this though, times on-screen are up tremendously for all ages; we now have what I’ve taken to calling good screen and bad screen. Technology is our means of work, our productivity, but also our means of relaxation and socialising. This existed prior to COVID-19 but has been accelerated by the pandemic, especially for children and young people. Their socialisation has always been more online, more digital, than any other generation; children in secondary school now have only ever known the world with iPhones.
That fact is startling to people. It’s startling to me. Even the children born prior to the iPhone, in years 10 & 11, have grown up completely around iPhones. This is a useful benchmark in because it shows the scale of change for this generation versus others. Theirs is a world whereby Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, have always existed. And this is hugely significant because social media, gaming, instant messaging, streaming services have profoundly changed the lives of everyone; but adults have known a world without theses things, but young people haven’t.
What is so significant about this is that what we conceive of the world comes with distinctions, shades, if you will. We can clearly distinguish between the physical world and the digital world or at least accept there is a distinction. For a lot of young people this far less distinct. Online friends are the same as friends offline. Communicating online is the same as communicating online, a text conversation is equivalent to a spoken conversation. To be clear, I’m not admonishing online connection but pointing the difference that can sometimes be lost in generational translation.
A young person’s online world is far more likely to be their world than the same being true for adult. This can be a wonderful thing, truly, but as with many things, there is a duality to this. Take this from Office for National Statistics, “Around one in five children aged 10 to 15 years in England and Wales (19%) experienced at least one type of online bullying behaviour in the year ending March 2020, equivalent to 764,000 children”. These numbers were prior to lockdown in the U.K. where everything moved largely online. On top of that, “almost 7 out of 10 children (68%) were emotionally affected to an extent by the online bullying behaviours experienced.”
Emotional wellbeing is affected by children’s engagement with these now-ubiquitous devices. They’ve become tools for entertainment and information but also means of ostracization and bullying. There are other concerns that are omnipresent with technology, namely safety. Different sources cite different ages for this, but place the age of first exposure to pornography between ages 8-11 tending towards younger age for boys. We also have the cultural phenomena of revenge porn to contend with, a trend that affects young women more than young men, and is now prosecutable under English law.
There are other growing worries amongst parents, beyond exposure to explicit content, such as issues of online grooming or harassment by predators and extremist groups. Things that are becoming more accessible because of the breadth of the internet. One of the more shocking things to parents is to do with Tik Tok, the fastest growing and one of the most used apps in the world. Due to the nature of the algorithm the app uses, it can map underage users content to sexual predators because of the content they consume. If the young person is 16 or over, other accounts can direct message them through the app. These issues have been widely reported by news outlets like Buzzfeed, Forbes, and BBC News, even being the subject of a BBC Panorama episode.
Perhaps one of the most concerning things about the use of digital devices is the addictive or compulsive behaviour that has come about because of it. Internet addiction do exist and are now diagnosable. They are to be included in the International Classification of Diseases next edition, being only the second behavioural addiction to be added to the ICD after gambling addictions were added in 1990. This is in large part due to the issues countries like South Korea have experienced with online behaviour.
South Korea had introduced internet rehabilitation centres as early as 2005 and had to introduce a law that banned under-16s from gaming online between the hours of 12 am & 6 am. What their diagnosticians found in many of these cases is that withdrawal into digital worlds, and slow descent into online addictions like gaming addictions was often due to other mental health conditions, like depression and anxiety. Young people were using these addictions as escape routes from the physical world, perhaps the more unfamiliar and scary world, into digital worlds.
“Parents need a different set of skills and tools to be able to help their children navigate the ever-increasing digitisation of the world”
What does all of this mean? Because I’m sure at this point you may want to snatch away your child’s device and never let them use their digital devices again. I mention the above concerns because they are legitimate concerns, and should be taken seriously, but parents can’t possibly cut children off the digital world. What the internet and technology are so good at is summarised wonderfully by Danah Boyd, when he says “ the internet mirrors, magnifies and makes more visible the good and the bad and the ugly of everyday life.”
This means parents need a different set of skills and tools to be able to help their children navigate the ever-increasing digitisation of the world. Here, is where NVR can truly step into its own. So many of the tools NVR equips parents with are ready-made for use with exactly this kind of issue. I know this because my parents used these techniques to manage my own issues with online gaming.
I compulsive gamed, for years, spurning my education and social world in the physical world in favour of gaming. It became a deep escape route from my reality at that point and relied on gaming for my self-esteem. I played deep into the night, and early in the mornings, immediately after school and for whole weekends at a time. My parents had to employ strategies to help disconnect me from digital devices and re-engage with the world at large.
How my parents did this centres around some of the core techniques of NVR: de-escalation, mini announcements, the raising of parental presence, communication, and vigilant care. These may be new or foreign terms, which is completely fine, do not be disheartened, they are like anything skills or tools to be learnt and employed.
“How comfortable are parents having conversations around pornography, sending nudes over the internet, online grooming, and online scams?”
One of the first things to tackle is removing the ‘bad guy’ from the equation. Technology is as much good as it is bad, and there is a tendency to polarise things as one or the other but really the truth is more nuanced. Technology connects as much as it separates. At the moment, it is fundamental to the everyday workings of our society, to make it the ‘bad guy’ only creates a barrier between parents and children. The more we create the narrative for ourselves and them, the more we push them towards the things we believe are bad.
Instead, parents are far better off taking an interest in the child’s digital world. If anyone knows anything about children, it’s that they like telling adults what to do or that they’re wrong. Engaging with the devices that they’re using, or the apps that they’re using affords that opportunity; ask them how it works, what they’re playing, are they winning, ask if they’re having fun. All of these are to some degrees entry into the child’s digital world. You are acknowledging that this is important to them and taking an interest in it because of that.
I recall my mum used to play Spyro with me when I was younger, half because she enjoyed it, and half because it helped her engage with my digital world. We could bond over the game, she could ask where I was up to, whether I was struggling on any bits of the game. It was something I was interested in so would always open up a conversation where she could ask about other aspects of my life as well. There is a bond over something, I felt connected because of it, and this crucial because a bridge is built, a point of relation; I could help her on levels, we could talk whilst playing together, and she could engage with me whilst I play.
There is a reason why this is useful for parents, and that’s because there is a science behind screen-time. So often when telling children to get off devices it turns into an argument, into shouting or a difficult situation, and that reaction is explainable. Isabelle Filliozat explains that when using technology, “our brains produce dopamine, a neurotransmitter which relieves stress and pain. All is well – that is until the screen is turned off. The dopamine levels in the body drop fast and without warning, which can, literally, create a sensation of pain in the body.”
There is a physiological response to the abrupt stopping of digital devices; think for a moment how you would feel if someone just grabbed your phone out of your hand, or closed your laptop when you were in the middle of something. The reason this produces such a huge reaction is because of the sharp drop in dopamine causing a sense of shock to the system. That’s the same with digital devices and children. Let’s say if you need them to come to dinner, instead of saying “Get off the Playstation/Xbox/Switch Now! Dinner is ready!” beginning conversations with them beforehand, and asking them questions and letting them respond builds a bridge to the physical world. Then saying “Shall we go and eat?” will yield far greater results.
What can often be lost in amongst creating the “bad guy” out of children’s use of digital devices, is parents own use of digital devices. It’s worth considering our relationships with technology; are we using our phones through dinner, taking phone calls, sending emails, texting through films or looking at the news; are we using our laptops in front of children when they’re trying to show us showing us things, or watching TV or Netflix whilst they’re engaging with us? Do they see us taking pleasure or chagrin from the number of likes we get on posts on Instagram, or Facebook, or Twitter? Children see these behaviours as a blueprint for their own actions. They will actively model their behaviours on what has been learnt from parents.
If children see parents using phones through mealtimes, they too will start using phones through mealtimes. If they see parents on their phones during conversations, they will use their phones through conversations. This situation has been made far worse by COVID-19, as parents are now working from home, children studying from home if they’re at school age, but younger children don’t understand why their parents can’t play and need to spend time on the computer. Children struggle with the absence of their parents, like during periods of extra hours at work; they can rationally understand the absence but that doesn’t change the emotional reaction to it.
“NVR prizes honest and open communication, and keeping things out in the open is a major function of the model.”
The way to navigate these somewhat slippery areas is by establishing a family agreement around technology. Agreeing on realistic things for your family, like no phones at the dinner table creating an opportunity for quality time; no phones during films together, or even no technology an hour before bed, for everyone. Leading by example and modelling these behaviours make it easier for children to follow your example. Many children, especially those with neurodevelopmental disorders they feel a greater sense of fairness or injustice, so seeing you stick to this encourages them to do the same.
These family agreements also open up a conversation around the internet and device use with children. Understanding their values, their understanding of online safety, as well as what they enjoy can be so incredibly informative. Honest dialogue about the internet is crucial, as is the acceptance that you won’t like everything your child does on the internet. Realising what are the true off-limits things, and what you can let slide is important. I mention this because fostering open conversation can mean your child confiding in you about something they’ve done, and your reaction at that moment is important; not correcting a small transgression can help them feel more connected to you, and more willing to open up in future.
NVR prizes honest and open communication, and keeping things out in the open is a major function of the model. This can be bracing for some people because it is not really part of English culture. Yet, it is so important to move beyond this because these conversations aren’t easy. How comfortable are parents having conversations around pornography, sending nudes over the internet, online grooming, and online scams? These things exist and the more they’re not discussed the more likely they are to cause issues for young people. Being willing to have difficult conversations is a hugely powerful long term tool because children respond to honesty and openness with honesty and openness.
If you or your family struggle with digital devices and would like some support, please contact us for a free 30-minute consultation to see whether NVR could help.
