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I Blame The Phone

Kids are simultaneously really smart and really dumb. I blame technology and the constant need to have the phone in the hand.

Case in point: my oldest is a freshman in college. By all accounts, she is a smart kid, gets good grades, and is doing well socially and emotionally.

Last week, I dropped her off at the train station to head down the tracks a few towns to school. Since I had a meeting, I dropped her off early with the plans to get to school early and hang out on campus.

Instead, she got on the wrong train and ended up in Harlem.

The conductor took pity on her, gave her a new ticket, and sent her north towards school.

She got on another wrong train and ended up at Fordham. Good school, but not the right school.

Finally, she made it to class – on time as luck would have it – and settled in for the day.

On the one hand, I was incredible proud of her for keeping it together, managing one train after another, and getting to school. A lesser child would have given up, called for a ride, and skipped the class.

Technology puts the world in our hands. It also distracts us from the world around us. Headphones shut out the noise, but also the voice of mom or dad or really anyone else who is trying to get your attention. We rely on technology to tell us where to go, but surrender our own sense of direction in the process. I can see where I am going, but I still defer to the voice in the computer that tells me to turn left. I know it’s wrong. I see it’s wrong. I do it anyway.

I suppose I am a little dumb too.

This week, I will invite my children to put the phone down, listen to one another, and enjoy the world around. I guess I will have to take my own advice as well.

Hmmmm… Let’s think about this.

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Movie Night for Tech Users

As any long-time reader of this blog knows, we have movie night at the Donovan household. Usually it’s Friday, though during Christmas or in a snowstorm it can be anytime.

This week, on the recommendation of a colleague, we watched The Social Dilemma.

If you have children, you really ought to watch it.

It can be found on Netflix and is a docu-drama exploring the rise of social media and the damage it can cause in society. As parents, it reminded us of the manipulation happening under our noses and for our children, it helped them realize what we could not teach them – they are the product being bought and sold online.

Watch it. Talk about it.

A few things struck me that I would challenge you to think about.

  • The rise in hospitalizations among young females and the increase in self-harm we see in young girls.
  • An increase in suicides among young people.
  • The rise of cyber-bullying.
  • The practice of positive intermittent reinforcement used by app developers to keep you engaged.
  • How algorithms created by tech companies influence everything from how we get our news to where we shop to who is in our social circles.

Remember that line from Mark Twain about how a lie could get halfway around the world before the truth can put its pants on (or something like that). Well, that’s still true. False information on Twitter spreads six times faster than real information. Think about that for a minute.

As the credits roll, those who have been interviewed throughout the show – mostly disillusioned tech workers who helped create these problems, make some recommendations that we’ll be trying to implement in the Donovan household.

  1. Turn off all notifications on your phone. Yes, your fear of missing out will take some time to adjust and you will want to make excuses that your boss might need you or you might miss an important call, but consider this: a group of scientists were able to put a man on the moon without email, texting, or social media. Is your work any more or less important?
  2. Uninstall all social media apps and new apps that waste your time. Deep breath. You can do this. Install an app that helps you read faster or check out an app that encourages you to pray every day. Or just put the dang phone down and play outside.
  3. Use a search engine that does not track your use and search history. For example, Qwant is a good alternative to Google, Bing, and all their siblings.
  4. Never, ever click on a recommended video, story, or post. This information only feeds the algorithms that are part of the manipulation process.
  5. Keep devices out of the bedroom after a certain time. This one is tough, especially if you have gotten rid of your home phone.
  6. Avoid screen time among children altogether. Our kids are older, but if I had to do it all over again, boy would I do it differently.
  7. Fact-check before sharing. No matter how interesting the story might be or how much you think your friends or family will like it.

The film got great reviews by those who understand the issues social media has created. It got criticized for being too simplistic and, of course, some social media companies panned it outright.

One thing is for sure: it generated some great conversations in our household and a willingness by the children to at least talk about restrictions when it comes to devices and how we let them rule our lives.

It’s a long weekend. Think about spending some quality screen time together in front of a movie that will get you talking.

And, just maybe, hiding your phone.

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What’s the Matter with Kids Today?

There is a great song in the musical Bye Bye Birdie, where the characters lament all the things that are wrong with kids today. Surely if the song were rewritten for modern times, someone would be singing about the rise of anxiety among young people.

Don’t believe me? Read this article. And this one. And this one. And this one.

The reality is that for a number of reasons, young people today are less comfortable in their own skin than ever before. What is a parent to do? May I be so bold as to suggest three things?

Cut the cord. Yes, even the invisible one. The best $99 we spent recently was for a device called the Circle. It started as a Kickstarter campaign and was soon bought by Disney, who saw the potential. Essentially, it is a device that allows a parent to set up an account for each child, assign whichever device said child uses to that account, and set limits. The children living with me get anywhere from forty-five minutes to an hour and a half, sometimes more, of Internet time. Then the Circle kicks them off. I notice that when the Internet time is up, the Legos come out or, even better, the children rediscover the great outdoors. Plus, it lets me track their usage. I can see everything they watch and everything they do online. If chores are not getting done, I can hit the pause button and every device on the Circle shuts down the Internet to the whole house.

Eat together. Survey after survey will tell you that young people who eat at least five meals a week with their family are more likely to live longer, healthier lives, all while avoiding at-risk behavior. For Catholics, I would add that, according to research I have found, families who eat together raise children more likely to remain faithful later in life.

Listen. Young people today are struggling with self-esteem, self-worth, and are searching for communities that value and love them. How can they fall in love with a God they never meet? How can they find acceptance in a community that never listens? Mom and Dad – put your own phones down and listen to what your child has to say.

The list is short and incomplete, non-scientific and opinionated. But the children hate the Circle, so I know it was a great purchase. They are learning manners and to pass things instead of slide them across the table, where the forks go, and how to share, so that’s something. And the stories they tell when we chat about the day? Well, just listen for yourself sometime and you will see what I mean.

May your week be blessed.

~pjd