Raising Kids in a Digital World

There’s no doubt that technology has made our lives easier, more informative, and a lot more fun. But emerging research shows that it can also erode our kids’ social and life skills—and that includes pretty important stuff like showing courtesy and empathy, making conversation, handling conflict, and amusing yourself on your own.

Like it or not, technology is ever-present in your child’s life: A new Pew Research survey found that a full 95 percent of teens now have access to a smartphone—a staggering 22 percent increase from the 73 percent of teens who said this in Pew’s last report in 2015. Nearly half of those same teens said they use the internet “almost constantly.”

They weren’t kidding. A 2015 report from Common Sense Media found that teens spent an average of nine hours a day online, while kids aged 8 to 12 logged in six hours daily. Even children between 0 and 8 spent an average of 50 minutes a day in front of a screen.

But face-to-face time is a crucial part of a child’s socialization process, says Jennifer Hope, PhD, a psychologist in Brooklyn, New York. “When they spend too much time on screens and not enough time engaging with other people, they become accustomed to immediate gratification, endless stimulation, winning, and controlling all aspects of their environment,” she says. The result can be poor cooperation skills, distractibility, and a low tolerance for frustration or boredom that results in meltdowns.

Fortunately, parents have the power to keep their kids on the right path. Here’s how.

If you’re at a restaurant, don’t order the meal for your child, even if he or she is very young. Have them order instead, and nudge them to say “please” and “thank you” to the server. Similarly, if you need to buy something at a store, encourage your kid to do it—starting with a “hello” to the cashier, says Patricia Rossi, an etiquette keynote speaker from Tampa Bay, Florida, and author of Everyday Etiquette.

“Meeting and greeting should start small, and be a part of everyday life,” she says. “It’s difficult for some children to look adults in the eye, so play a little game. You can tell your child, ‘When you say hello to the cashier at the grocery store today, look for the color of her eyes, and tell me the color when we get in the car.’ It’s a little hack for teaching eye contact, which is important.”

That’s what the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) calls the method of keeping kids quiet and calm by handing them a phone. Sometimes, let’s face it, that phone is a godsend—like when you’re on a crowded plane, and your preschooler has a meltdown because he wants to wear his pull-up diaper as a hat. But as the AAP maintains, this shouldn’t be the only way that kids learn to handle their emotions—by stifling them with a distraction. Instead, they should be taught to identify their feelings, and encouraged to talk about ways they can solve a problem that’s making them upset.

Reading social cues in order to learn and grow requires the participation of others. In recognition of that, Dr. Hope says that many schools are now introducing Social and Emotional Learning Programs (SEL) into their curricula to build social and emotional intelligence and encourage the development of social competence. “Face to face interaction, beginning in infancy, helps kids develop healthy relationships,” says Dr. Hope, “as opposed to interactions with screens, in which the activity is passive and requires no reciprocal communication.”