So, we know kids are on their phones too much. That it does them harm. It makes kids seek to get the likes and followers instead of internal validation. To do outlandish and provocative things. That social media gives them an unrealistic view of how life and their own bodies should be. That they do not have enough social skills because they are not interacting with real people.

However, do enough people know that phones are too much for their developing bodies because the colors are rewarding to our reward system so much that we crave the phone just from the colors alone (https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2023/02/09/grayscale-addiction/).

It is a concern that we barely give any time to. Which leads to my pet peeve where adults are critical of kids for being on their phones, while they are on their phones just as much. They are just as guilty of being tied to their phones.

Do they not curtail their kids’ use because they don’t want to confront or be confronted on their phone use?

Does that matter as kids do what parents do and not what parents think they are teaching them.

How much instruction and humanization is lost by a parent holding their baby and looking at their phone. They learn to talk by parents looking at them and talking to them.

This has been my pet peeve for a long time. My new thought is that perhaps phones lock people into memes and trending videos and that this leads to parents not being seen as parents.

In person, the parent/child relationship is established in infancy. The children live in the parents’ house. But online, that distinction is gone. Texting is better than no communication, but I don’t think the kids feel the difference between texting with their friends or their parents.

Parents and children need to have a shared experience in family events and outings. But the shared experiences of the online world distort what that relationship should be. They are just involved in sharing a meme or watching viral videos- parent and child. The interaction becomes parallel even. The child and parent are responding to the person posting the thing on social media and not each other. 

They are definitely not having a real discussion. Because everyone is on their phones. What do you think?