“No Wi-Fi. Talk to Each Other.” The sign in the small restaurant in New London, N.H., summed up my sentiments.
My trip to snowy New England in March raised my awareness of just how much online activity dominates our lives, but especially those of teenagers. On my trip, many teens seemed unaware of the world around them. They ignored a panoramic scene beyond the windows of the hotel’s dining room in favor of texts and images on their phones. They spoke little to each other or to the adults at their tables, where silence dominated. Many adults were similarly engaged.
Selfies were taken with spectacular mountains in the background. But were the mountains themselves appreciated for their beauty? In every setting, teens were elsewhere in electronic worlds of their choosing.
Dr. Clif CleavelandThe Internet can be a significant tool for research, education, relaxation and communication. The challenge is to keep its use within boundaries.
More than 75 percent of teens have cellphones. A 2013 study, Born to be Wired, concluded that young people age 13 to 24 averaged more than 16 hours per week online, excluding email. In addition, they watched television for an average of 13.6 hours weekly, listened to radio 12 hours and spoke on their phones for 7.7 hours. Another study concluded that high school students spend less than one hour daily in sports or other physical recreation.
Opinion varies widely on the possible effects of so much electronic connectivity. Nicholas Carr argues in “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains” that intense Internet use interferes with “deep thinking” wherein we methodically analyze a text or a complex situation in which we may find ourselves.
He further cautions, “It is not only deep thinking that requires a calm, attentive mind. It’s also empathy and compassion.” Fleeting images or texts allow no opportunity to comprehend complex circumstances that arise regularly in school, work or the home.
In “The Big Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships in the Digital Age,” clinical psychologist Catherine Steiner-Adair discusses both the positive and disruptive aspects of our hyper-connectivity. She blends an extensive review of scientific literature with vignettes from her own practice. It’s an important narrative for parents, grandparents, teachers and all who aspire to provide love and care for children.
She contends that smartphones and computers are progressively replacing the influence of family and other mentors upon childhood development. A family can limit contact of the child with violent or seductive adults, but the Internet removes this protective barrier. Instead of dinner-table conversation, bedtime stories and companionable silences, the content of the Internet becomes the shaper of the child’s perception of the world and how he or she should behave within that world.
Parents themselves may be excessively caught up in their own digital work and play, delegating their children to their devices whether by the television set in their bedrooms or the tablets through which they can access endless entertainment. The electronic playground can feed the child violent or sexual images for which the brain is unprepared. Texts on their phones become their guiding conversations. Adult and child members of the family function within isolated cocoons, each with its unique sensory inputs.
The concluding chapter in Steiner-Adair’s book, “Building the Sustainable Family,” offers seven principals for nurturing lives of creativity, kindness and community engagement. It alone is reason for reading engaging book.
Neuroscientist Eric Kandel received a Nobel Prize for work that demonstrated that repeated use of a circuit of nerve cells leads to increased growth in those cells and to increased levels of vital chemicals within each cell. MRI scans show that repetitious activity, such as sustained Internet activity, can lead to enlargement of certain regions of the brain while other areas may shrink. In a few years we may know the effects upon human behavior of these structural and functional changes.
In the meantime, we should not deprive our children of outdoor play, strolls on a spring afternoon or the countless small engagements that make up a family’s enduring legacy to its own. Perhaps the New Hampshire sign belongs in our living rooms.
Contact Clif Cleaveland at cleaveland1000@comcast.net.