Concerns about tech addiction in the modern family
“If we as parents are answering emails at the family dinner table during a meal or tweeting while we push our child on the swing in the park, we’re the technological equivalent of eating crisps for breakfast in front of our children.”
-Colman Noctor, Author of ‘Cop on and why does your child need it’.
For the past many weeks I have been concentrating on my ‘community offering’ for Entrepreneurial Design class at the SVA (School of Visual Arts) MFA IxD (Interaction Design) program. I have been focused on a topic that concerns me greatly, one that is certainly an outsized ‘fish’ to attempt to proverbially fry. Tech addiction, that buzzy topic that lately seems to be on the minds and hearts of everyone from parents to major investors. Whereas the breathless alacrity of adopting newer and faster ways to ‘connect’ has been embraced by creators and users alike, Silicon Valley companies have recently been called out by prominent investors, to take more responsibility for their role in everything from election meddling and hate speech to physical health and internet addiction, especially amongst kids. Tech is changing the minds and habits of everyone but kids are most susceptible for better or for worse.
Tech giants such as Apple, Facebook, Google, etc., are all facing scrutiny and criticism with their roles in contributing and profiting from the very point of their respective publicly invested mega businesses, to grow and reach as many people as possible, even at the risk of unproven, some might posit, disastrous outcomes. Companies shape their apps and platforms around the goal of keeping people on them for as long as possible. The longer users are on, the more ad-supported business models benefit. Former employees at companies such as Google and Facebook are urging tech companies to rethink and redesign addictive and intrusive tools under a new organization called Center for Humane Technology. Former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris who worked there until 2016, has made a name for himself as a thought leader encouraging designers to craft apps and services in ways that enhance humanity rather than just benefiting from it monetarily. He is the executive director and cofounder of the new organization.
“Companies have a role to play in helping to address these issues,” said Barry Rosenstein, managing partner of Jana Partners, an investment firm that wrote an open letter to Apple recently urging the tech behemoth to look at its products’ health effects, especially on children. “As more and more founders of the biggest tech companies are acknowledging today, the days of just throwing technology out there and washing your hands of the potential impact are over.”
I decided to reach out to members of my community, namely parents with young children or teenagers to get their take on the subject. The format I decided to set up to get the ball rolling was in the form of a Mad Lib, that wacky game that people of an older (namely Gen X or Y) generation would partake in to get some laughs. Of course, this was before the iPhone.
It was certainly a simpler time when I was young and would order Mad Lib books on my Scholastic ordering form. Armed w a pen or pencil, a Mad Lib booklet and a friend (or often times, just by myself), scenarios would be created, with nothing but silly nouns, verbs, adjectives and the like. An active imagination, some grasp of the English language and a penchant for surreal outcomes would keep us busy for hours. Why did I use this seemingly incongruous format to parse data from my community? I just know that surveys are generally tedious, no matter how well-intentioned the surveyor and how willing the participants. A Mad Lib was my innocuous way into gaining some deep valuable insight. Also, unlike a survey, rarely do you give up halfway on a Mad Lib. I live in a small tight-knit community along the Hudson in Northern Westchester, New York. We have fresh air and wonderful schools, sports and scout troops. It’s not unlike many similar communities throughout the U.S. Here, as in everywhere, parents care deeply about the well-being of their children. Because my Mad Lib was meant to be taken seriously and because our community is small, I was able to physically pass out my Mad Lib forms to parents I know, at basketball games, scout troop meetings, or even at people’s homes. I was even lucky enough to get many of them returned to me right to my mailbox. The in-person exchange was helpful so that I could explain to them the subject matter and that the Mad Lib was meant to be taken seriously. I only received one form back that was done the way Mad Libs were intended, in a silly manner full of non-sequiturs.
The participants were diverse, ranging from doctors, book publishers, guidance counselors, stay-at-homes, CFOs, lawyers, to firefighters. In each and every case, the parents love the living daylights out of their children and are trying their hardest to shape them to be outstanding human beings. They are constantly amazed and bemused by their offspring. However, the infiltration of tech into homes has been unavoidable and while some parents have no issues with the amount of tech use in their home, many voiced concerns while admitting to a certain dependence themselves on using devices with no modicum of self-control.
I decided to write about this in two ways. This article you’re reading which is more contextual as well as a ‘listicle’, detailing some of the key quotes i found interesting. Also, if you wish to read even more in depth, here is the data I parsed from my Mad Libs, which I will keep adding to as I continue to gather.
