While there are a lot of benefits to smartphones, there are also many detrimental aspects of how they affect our lives.
So, while they are definitely a necessity in this day and age, keep these 5 things in mind and maybe they will help you wean you and your kids off of screen time once in a while.
1. Overuse makes you a distant parent
Photo Credit: pxhere
Studies show that mothers who take breaks from child rearing and focus on their phones have infants and toddlers who are more emotionally distressed and are less likely to explore their environments.
These studies also show that overuse of phones by parents is considered a form of “maternal withdrawal and unresponsiveness.”
On top of that, half of kids aged 8-13 think that their parents are on their phones too much and a significant chunk of that age group said they felt “unimportant” when their moms and dads used their phones during dinners and family events.
2. Screen time IS NOT helping your kid’s education
Photo Credit: pxhere
In fact, it might even be harming them. One study showed that handheld screen time is linked with speech development issues in young kids.
And kids under the age of 5 have been shown to gain absolutely no educational value at all from screen time, even when the program or app is education-based. Basically, kids under 5 aren’t picking up anything from the videos unless an adult helps explain it to them along the way.
It’s recommended that kids between the ages of 2-5 only have one hour of supervised screen time each day.
3. Navigational apps might be a major issue
Photo Credit: Flickr,naserke
The days of pulling out an Atlas or even writing down directions from MapQuest seem to be a relic of the past. Instead, even if we’re only going a couple miles away, we automatically turn on our navigational apps to get where we’re headed.
This is not good.
Evidence shows that these apps are seriously messing up our cognitive maps. When we only follow these apps, we have no need to pay attention to roads, signs, etc., so we’re not learning or understanding how roads connect in our towns and cities.
And remember, “death by GPS” can be a real thing. There have been cases of people blindly trusting GPS systems in vehicles, getting hopelessly lost, and dying in the middle of nowhere.
Yikes!
4. Social media is making us sad and anxious
Photo Credit: pxhere
I don’t think it’s news to anyone that too much social media is bad for us.
Studies have shown that social media use leads to feelings of envy and anxiety. It’s also making us unhappy and contributing to declining physical health.
A 2017 study showed that, on average, people spend 27 minutes per day on each social media app, and less than 10 minutes a day on apps that are beneficial, such as health, reading, etc.
5. A phone within reach messes up meaningful conversation
Photo Credit: pxhere
If we always have the option of simply grabbing our phones and basically ignoring the people we’re spending time with, we have some issues. This constant reliance on avoiding eye contact and even talking with close friends and family does damage conversation in general for all of us.
Even putting our phones away and out of sight is shown to make conversation much better. The mere presence of a smartphone causes people to expect that an interruption might be coming and so interaction suffers as a result.
Put down your phones and engage with the world around you!
At least for a little while…
