Marie Danet, University of Lille
In most countries, children today are immersed in a digital world. According to INSEE, 87% of families had internet access in 2018 and 82% of families owned at least one digital device allowing online access.
Over the ages, the media used evolve and the time spent in front of this or that type of screen varies. Young children still have a majority use of television (87% of 2 year olds watch it, 68% of them every day). 6-10 year olds are 50% to pass three hours or more per day in front of a screen, while 12-17 year olds are 86% to own a smartphone and 70-87% spend 3 hours or more in front of a screen.
As for adults, about 80% of them spend 3 hours or more per day in front of a screen, excluding time dedicated to work. Do these uses harm quality exchanges between parents and children? Or, on the contrary, can they constitute a new mode of relationship?
Risks of “technoference”
Let us think of these scenes, observed in the street, parks or doctors’ waiting rooms. On one side, a baby stares at his father from his stroller, a child calls out to his mother to show her his progress in drawing or on a bicycle. On the other, the parent in question keeps his eyes glued to his smartphone.
These interruptions in exchanges linked to digital uses have been named technoference by Brandon McDaniel – term combining “technology” and “interference”. Initially applied to relations of couplethis concept is now being studied within families in order to observe the impact of information technologies on the interactions between parents and children.
A la City University of New York – Hunter College, Myruski and colleagues conducted research to observe the effects of parent cell phone use when interacting with their baby.
They noted that young children exhibited less positive affect and more negative affect when mothers stopped interacting with them to check their phones. The effects of technoference are also observed in slightly older children : below 5 years, they will show more difficult behaviors.
At the adolescentswe find similar results: the interference of technologies in relationships is linked to slightly higher levels of anxiety and depression.
Sharing of references and emotions
However, it is important to note that the parents’ use of their mobile and the child’s difficult behavior influence each other. Thus, having a child with difficult behavior is a source de stress for the parent and the telephone would then become a means of indent and deal with that stress.
If the parents are aware that the use of ICT can generate family tensions and harm the attention they give to their children and the quality of the exchanges with them, they also recognize that the use of ICT can be a means of reducing tensions in the family at times. This parental ambivalence shows the difficulty of managing screens today.
However, the use of information technologies can also be at the service of the links between parents and children, making it possible to share privileged moments with the children and to build a common family culture. From an early age, digital tools can be presented to children for video calls (eg FaceTime, Skype, WhatsApp, etc.) with loved ones (grandparents, father or mother on the move, etc.).
Indeed, even if the sensory information is limited to sight and hearing, the young child perceives the online exchanges in a way quite similar to face-to-face exchanges and differentiates them from a “simple” video. This perception of synchrony in interactions can make it possible to maintain ties during separations and in particular a continuity of attachment relationships.
Video games or applications on mobile screens can also be an opportunity to share moments of pleasure and positive emotions, as well as a common universe with his children, young or old. These playful interactions via ICT would even promote the communication.
The improvement in communication observed in this context could be explained by the fact that children are sometimes more competent and would thus accompany their parents in the discovery of certain digital uses. Furthermore, it is also interesting to note that the use of ICT also allows the child to communicate more with friends, both online and offline.
Social networks
As children become teenagers, new tensions and opportunities related to ICTs can emerge. Annoyance can manifest itself in both parents and teenagers, each finding that the other uses it too much. This will depend on the quality of the links, but also on the representations that the parents have of digital technologies, which will guide their parental mediation style.
The possibility of being in contact easily thanks to digital tools can reassure parents and teenagers and thus participate in the process of empowerment, characteristic of this age. Parents can also use these technologies to maintain a certain closeness with their teenager. Indeed, as the child grows, communications in this way tends to increase.
Parents with a good image of digital technologies would even use social networks to communicate with parents. friends of their teenager. However, this depends on the pre-existing relationship between parents and children, i.e. outside the digital context. Indeed, a request for “friends” sent by the parents to their teenager may, for example, be perceived by the latter as intrusion.
Technologies lead us to rethink the links between individuals, and more particularly within the family. Have a conscious use, a good listening and communication skills between parent and child, could allow the use of screens to be seen as facilitating access between generations rather than as an obstacle to relationships.
Marie DanetLecturer in Psychology, University of Lille
This article is republished from The Conversation sous licence Creative Commons. Lire l’article original.