Technoference and young children’s social and emotional development
Author: Jenny Radesky, MD. Director, Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics, University of Michigan Medical School
Background: Understanding Technoference
Technoference is a term coined by researchers to describe the interruption of parent-child activities with technology.
Parents have always had some degree of distraction: books, magazines, phone calls, or chatting with neighbors. But the invention of smartphones was game-changing. Little interactive computers now occupy the social and emotional spaces between parents and children. Smartphones are continually becoming faster, filling more of our lives, and demanding more attention and data. As a result, today’s parents are navigating a brand-new challenge of balancing highly engaging technology with the joyful and exhausting role of raising small humans.
As a researcher and a doctor, I’ve talked to hundreds of parents about how this feels. They describe “toggling” their busy brains between their to-do list or social lives on their phone and their children’s emotional needs.
The Impact of Technoference on Family Interactions
Whenever people multitask, they are less accurate and efficient at both things they are trying to do – and technoference is no different. When looking at a phone, it is harder to read children’s social cues, interpret their behavior, or manage their tantrums. Studies have found that parents using smartphones talk to their children less, take longer to respond to child needs, may not respond at all, or may overreact.
Children notice this split attention as well: when parents’ attention is absorbed in a smartphone, infants show fussing and can be hard to settle. In a research study, when we observed families in fast food restaurants, the children of smartphone-using parents sometimes acted up or tried to get their parents’ attention.
Many parents say that in times of stress, they pick up their phones for a “virtual escape” and often give their child a screen to calm down as well. In the long run, this can lead to more negative child behavior, as technology displaces the moments of co-regulation or emotional teaching that can occur during challenging moments. (It’s worth noting that this happens with teens too, who are very aware when their parents appear unavailable, their attention absorbed in technology).
Reducing Technoference
Most parents want to reduce their smartphone use, but it’s not as easy as simply telling them to use their phones less. Some parents may have mental health challenges like depression that drive them to use their phone as a coping strategy. Many feel they need to be always available to friends, family, or work.
Technology features have a role to play in this too: a multitude of habit-forming designs capture parents’ attention, hold onto it, and make it hard to disengage – including infinite scroll, algorithms optimized to predict what parents will watch next, and intermittent rewards. These designs help platforms reach their business goals of daily active users, number of clicks, data collected, and ads viewed. But these designs also mean that parents have to weed through content creators competing for their attention, posting misinformation, or promising the answers to all of life’s questions.
How services might help
Uncertainty and exhaustion are normal parts of raising young children. To resist the unhelpful distractions available in phones, practitioners working with parents can help them learn tech-free emotion regulation and coping strategies that allow them to focus on the little human in front of them. Parents who are struggling to connect with their young children may feel more pulled to the high-pleasure, low-friction space of their phone, and they may need more early relational support from home visitors or therapists. Tech-based solutions may also help, such as putting physical distance from the phone, using do-not-disturb settings, or limiting time on social media or mobile games, which have the most habit-forming features.
Rebuilding Connections
Attention is power, so we should support parents in spending it wisely. Giving positive attention to young children shows them that they matter. Paying attention to what is triggering young children’s emotions can help parents and children navigate the ups and downs of everyday feelings. Attention to children’s exploration can help parents build insight into their child’s developmental progress and provide scaffolding. Helping parents rebalance their attention between phones and children can support the emotional wellbeing of all family members.
References
Edwards, C.P. (2000) Children’s play in cross-cultural perspective: A new look at the Six Culture Study. Cross-Cultural Research .34(3):318-338.
Lamb, M.E. and Lerner, R.M, eds. (2015) Handbook of child psychology and developmental science: Socioemotional processes. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, pp794-841.
LeVine, R.A. and New, R.S., eds. (2008). Anthropology and Child Development: A Cross-Cultural Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.
Rothbart, M.K. (2011) Becoming who we are: Temperament and personality in development. New York: Guilford Press.
