Technoference: The Unseen Impact of Technology on Your Family
This article introduces the concept of "technoference," or the way technology interferes with our interpersonal relationships. While technology can connect people over long distances, its constant presence can also pull families apart. The post highlights research showing that background TV significantly reduces the number of words parents speak to their children. It also points to studies indicating that interruptions from phone calls can hinder a child's ability to learn new words, and that parental phone use during meals correlates with more externalizing behaviors in children. The article concludes that being more mindful and reducing screen time can help families reconnect and support a child’s cognitive, social, and emotional development.
Grandparents living in Florida video chat with their grandchild who lives in South Dakota to wish her a happy birthday.
A deployed wife and mother reads a bedtime story with her husband to their child each night via video chat.
Extended family members are able to watch instant videos and receive regular updates on what is going on in the lives of children in their families who are growing up thousands of miles away.
Technology sure has a way of pulling us all together.
A wife and mother answers her phone at dinner to respond to her boss’s request for more tasks that need to be done.
A husband and father checks his phone for Fantasy Football updates during playtime with the kids.
A child plays video games while his parents scroll through their social media feeds. No one says a word.
Technology sure has a way of pulling us apart!
In reality, technology is a good thing. Merriam-Webster defines technology as “the practical application of knowledge.” The application of knowledge creates advancements that improve our world. This allows for family members to communicate instantly, even when living on separate continents. It allows today’s kids to have access to high-quality content that advances their academic, social-emotional, and language competence. This allows us to feel connected with almost anyone we choose, regardless of the barriers standing in our way.
And yet somehow, it also interferes with our ability to connect as humans. The official term for this is technoference, or the “interference” that technology has in our lives, specifically our interpersonal relationships.
We see the advances in technology as better for us as a human race: new games that will help your child get a leg up before kindergarten, middle school, or high school; social media platforms that allow you to connect with anyone, anywhere, any time; video chat platforms that allow you to be “present” for any task virtually, any time of day, regardless of the weather, lack of childcare, a sick kid, etc.
But the reality is that researchers have studied the impact that technoference has in our lives, and it turns out that technological advances may not be a net positive overall. Our relationships, specifically those with our spouses and children, are taking a direct hit.
Did you know that when TV is on in the background, parents speak 12 fewer words per minute to their young children? 12 fewer words per minute!
Let’s multiply that. If you are watching just a 30-minute show in the background while you are at home with your young child, research shows that you are likely to speak 360 fewer words than you would have if you were just playing, doing laundry together, or going for a walk. And if you have the TV on in the background for the entire day? (We’ve all been there. Being at home with a newborn or toddler can be a long day, and having the TV on in the background can help with our sanity.) But if we do that, that’s 720 fewer words per hour, up to 5,760 fewer words per day if the TV is on all day long.
Do you think TV on in the background has an impact on our ability to connect with our children? Now we know that it does!
That’s just TV. What about phones?
Researchers wanted to study how well young children were able to learn new words from their mothers when distractions from phones were present. One group of participants was allowed to teach the new words without distractions, while the other group was interrupted periodically by a phone call. The results of the study showed how impactful even the simplest distraction, like a phone call, can have on children.
The results showed that even though both groups of participants taught the same words and referenced those words the exact same number of times, children were less likely to be able to remember the new words when the lesson was interrupted by a phone call.
How many of you have been interrupted by a phone call, text, or email while trying to help your child with something?
So cell phone use can impact our children’s ability to learn when we are interrupted. What about their behaviors? Do you think that children’s behaviors are impacted by their parents’ phone use?
Researchers randomly observed 55 parents who were eating with their children at a fast-food restaurant in Boston, MA. Of the 55 parents, 40 used a mobile device at least once during the meal. What the researchers found was that as the number of interactions with the mobile device increased, so did the externalizing behaviors of the children.
Now, the big question here is, how do you think those parents responded to the externalizing behaviors? Did they realize that there was a connection? Most likely not. And I don’t blame them. None of us knew what positive or negative impact screens were going to have on our lives. They were just thrown at us and we were expected to act. We introduced our kids to YouTube, video games, and streaming content because it was available and we didn’t have time to do the research. Let’s be honest, most parents don’t have the time to scour research journals checking on the impact of screens on our kids. The issue is that we simply don’t know what’s bad.
Until today, most of you didn’t know that the simple task of putting the TV on in the background can limit the number of words we speak to our children.
Until today, most of you didn’t know that simply picking up your phone to respond to an email, a text, or just a quick Facebook scroll can increase your child’s externalizing behavior and subsequently create conflict between you.
You didn’t know that these things were happening, but they are. And as the years pass, more research will emerge, presenting us with more information about the impact of technology on our relationships and our children’s language, cognitive, and social-emotional development.
And even though you didn’t know before that some of these things could cause interruptions in your relationship, now you do.
Now you know that each time you pick up your cell phone, it has an impact on your connections with your spouse and your children.
Now you know that the TV, social media, video games, and other screens that might bring you some joy distract you from connecting with your spouse and your child, and that too much of this can have a lasting impact on your relationship with your child and your child’s cognitive, social-emotional, and language development.
When it comes to screens, less is more.
Less screen time allows you to do more of the things that your body and mind need for their own health and growth.
Less screen time allows you to connect more with your spouse and nurture the relationship, which positively impacts you personally, your relationship, and your children’s development.
And less screen time allows you to connect with your children – to play together, read books together, laugh together, and build the connection that creates a strong relationship with your children, now and into the future.
