Alone Together. “In the age of screens, families are spending more time ‘alone together.'”
Sounds good in some ways, doesn’t it? Alone Together out in the woods. Around a campfire. Day-dreaming alongside each other. Maybe meandering on a quiet walk, both lost in your own thoughts. Or hanging out in the living room all doing something different and yet, together.
Alone Together with Technology means something entirely different….as Sherry Turkle says (a professor at MIT):
“…“alone together” (labels) our heightened disconnection, which she said has resulted in kids not knowing how to empathize with each other or communicate effectively. “Across generations, technology is implicated in this assault on empathy,” she wrote in the New York Times. “We’ve gotten used to being connected all the time, but we have found ways around conversation—at least from conversation that is open-ended and spontaneous, in which we play with ideas and allow ourselves to be fully present and vulnerable.”
THIS is what I see, hear, and experience. THIS is why I write what I do for each of you as you work at understanding and intentionally changing how you use digital devices; how you recognize what is essential in building healthy relationships and growing healthy children.
This Alone Together creates dis-connection more often than not.
It interrupts real time, in person connection. It definitely can cause more angst on many levels–from being irritated with each other, to depression in our teens and young adults.
It certainly displaces the development of creativity and imagination, focused attention (though isn’t that funny, how focused our kids and ourselves can be on our devices…and yet, this in itself creates the inability to stay focused at length on conversations with another, a lesson in school, getting lost in a good book, being able to truly immerse ourselves in something hands-on and in real time).
It challenges physical development as our kids sit too much, are passively engaged with a device. It displaces language development, critical thinking skills–something we are in desperate need of more than ever as we are faced with an onslaught of “fake news” where-ever we turn. We need to be able to hone and use our critical thinking skills to navigate life.
And EMPATHY. It displaces the ability to empathize, for empathy takes the development of deep connection which spurs on compassion and understanding of another. It encourages acceptance, love, forgiveness. Empathy. It is essential.
And YES, time on devices CAN become a part of healthy development and it requires our own education of what it all means, our understanding of its impact, our role-modeling, our intentional selves getting clear about just how best to integrate these tools into our lives in ways that are relationship-building.
Interested in learning more? Explore these links to my writing that may help and lead you to other resources. Check them out if you ‘d like. They include “What TO do instead of a screen?,” “Our Children, Our Technology“, “Digital Wellness in the Age of Distraction”, “Our Children NEED Us”, “We Need to Know and Say NO”, “Connection vs Disconnection.”
And now go be Together Together. Fully present to whomever you are with. FULLY. It is essential for all of us to live well, to thrive.
Be sure to check out the Screen Time Action Network for resources, community, and more!
Respectfully and hopefully,
Alice
Author and Parent Coach
©2019 Alice Hanscam