Screens are ubiquitous; they’re not going away. You probably already know this. I frequently slip into denial, when it comes to technology, so I need frequent reminders. My computer screensaver, for example, reads: “No Screens!” My iPhone sends me reminders, too: “Get off your phone.” I’m glad Apple has figured out a way to finally show me exactly how much my phone usage has gone up from the previous week so I have yet another reason to check my phone.
Whether I like it or not, screens are a part of my family’s life. I both appreciate and fear them. Although I sometimes find myself on a moral high-horse micro-managing my son’s tech-time as if I myself weren’t susceptible to overindulgence, the truth is that screens have become the slippery slope everyone in my family can tumble down, at times.
We had to change our screen-time rules for weekends because our son was waking up too early to begin his 1-hour stretch of Saturday-morning iPad time. We’ve tried keeping screens out of our bedrooms, but how do you do that when your phone is also your alarm clock and your guided meditation tool for insomnia? Before dinner, my husband lies on the couch in the living room scrolling through the latest news. My own phone sends me regular notifications about what people I barely know are doing with third lives. I want to put my phone away, but it’s the centerpiece of my business and the lynchpin of my social life. It also distracts me when I’m bored. I’m pretty sure I interact with it more than I do with actual human beings.
We all know the ways screens help us, but the ways they hurt us are less visible. The impact of screens, technology, and video games are just now beginning to be researched and understood. Richard Freed, author of “Wired Child: Reclaiming Childhood in a Digital Age,” writes that children’s and teens’ obsession with technology is a devious alliance between “the consumer tech industry’s immense wealth [and] the most sophisticated psychological research [which makes] it possible to develop social media, video games, and phones with drug-like power to seduce young users.” The damage caused by widespread screen-presence in our lives is still in the very early stages of being fully understood.
As a couples therapist, I’ve begun seeing a trend. More and more couples come to me complaining about the ways that one or both partners’ social, emotional, and interpersonal functioning has been seriously harmed by early and excessive exposure to screens.
Parents who are stressed, single parents, parents who just want to recover from their own workday can often rationalize allowing their kids excess screen time. “They connect with friends that way.” “It’s a part of their social identity.” “They need to know what’s going on in the latest video games–it helps them fit in at school.” “They’re learning something.” “A little screen time never hurt anyone.” And of course, in moderation, and on occasion, if you’re a parent, there are bound to be times when being lax with screen-time boundaries is necessary. But when screens become a person’s only or most consistent go-to pleasure, or their primary escape from stress, they’re setting the stage for potentially serious problems. In committed, intimate relationships, they can end up with an emotional vacuum at their core, perpetuating the inability to connect, read social cues and signals, feel competent and confident, self-soothe and communicate with others.
You can call on the relational superpower of presence to counter the siren call of screens. Practice being present with yourself, your feelings, emotions, sensations, and habitual thought patterns. Try to avoid the impulse to distract yourself with a screen, when the urge to check messages, send texts or get online hits you. Take an hour or two hour breaks from screens several times a day. Instead of scrolling through click bait or playing a mindless video game, ask yourself, “What am I feeling that’s uncomfortable right now? What would happen if I just felt what I’m feeling with full awareness instead of avoiding it?”
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