“HA HA HA, SUCKERS, I WIN!”
Over the past three months, my husband, our oldest son, and I have developed a habit of good-natured ribbing over who is on their mobile phone the most. Our ribbing became a little more animated after we saw this photo spread. So, two weeks ago when my husband checked our data usage while paying our monthly bill and I had the lowest amount, I enjoyed a glorious moment of victory.
It was short-lived, however. My son’s data usage was more than DOUBLE my amount. I was not a winner. I was a big, big loser.
It used to just be video game screen time we worried about limiting. When we got him his phone out of necessity when he went to middle school in the sixth grade, he mostly used it to find out when/where we’d pick him up after school.
Since we moved to Colorado from Michigan, however, he’s no longer in school with kids he’s known forever. Making new friends when you’re 14 can be challenging in the best of circumstances. As those of you with teens know, these days, many of them interact a significant amount of time on social media. Our son Snapchats, he Instagrams, he text-messages. He uses social media to connect; it is how he is developing relationships with other kids, how he’s making friends.
When it comes to screen time, we’ve always prided ourselves on not giving in on what we think is important—video game time is limited, no “first person shooter” games allowed. I really wish it were as easy as just saying, “Well, we’ll just get rid of the phone.” (As if. You should have seen me the other day in the car when I realized I had left my phone at home. I felt like Matt Damon in The Martian, stranded on a far away planet with no way to connect with Earth. Potatoes!)
But we’re at a bit of a loss now. We want him to make and develop friendships, and yet we don’t feel like him being on social media so consistently is a good thing. Then again, when I was his age, my parents fretted over how long I was on the phone every night. Is this any different?
And it isn’t just interacting on social media. There’s a certain “cultural competency” he’s trying to maintain: researching information about sports teams, keeping up on the latest Youtube videos so he can discuss them with the other kids, etc.
I also can’t ignore the positives of cell phone technology. Our son is able to stay connected to his cousins in Oregon and his good friends in Michigan. For his somewhat introverted personality, it provides a rather “low stakes/low risk” opportunity to get to know new friends. He’s still earning great grades, and he still makes time to read for pleasure. But… he seems slightly obsessed… it’s a little unsettling.
It has caused me to analyze my own behavior. I often tell myself of my cell phone, “It’s just replacing my newspaper.” But, truly, that’s at least partially crap. Back when we had a paper one delivered, I loved reading the newspaper in the morning over coffee. It was a “once a day” endeavor, though. I didn’t carry it around with me everywhere I went and pull it out at every down moment. I do need my phone for work—there is an expectation that emails and texts will be answered at off-times. Still… I certainly don’t need my phone out as often as I do. And I love to text-message with my family and friends—I have been cured of the incessant talking-on-the-phone habit of my own youth, but it’s hard to pass up an emoji-laced back and forth with a kindred spirit.
So, in the two weeks since my big win, er, I mean LOSS, my husband and I have tried to be a lot more aware of how often we pull out our phones. (Last Sunday at 7:30am, as relaxing as it would have been to sip my coffee while reading my “newspaper”, instead I enjoyed my cup of joe over a stirring game of Settlers of Cataan.) We keep our ringers turned off if we’re all home together so that there isn’t an audible interruption when texts/emails/calls come in. We’ve set boundaries around when our son can use his phone for socializing: no phone during homework or family time, and he doesn’t keep it in his room at night. We’re going to keep talking to other parents and seeking out how others manage, we’re going to keep reading aloud to all three of our kids, and we’re going to keep open a dialogue with our son about how technology affects his and all our lives.
Perhaps this month, instead of jostling over who is the “winner” with the lowest amount of data usage, we should all just have the goal of being under a certain amount—something we can work towards together.
(Still, I am SO going to win.)
::turns off phone::
Mark your calendars!
Join us Thursday, November 5th, from 6:30-8:00pm at Mackintosh Academy-Littleton Campus to hear Michael Vladeck discuss “Raising Balanced Kids in the Digital Age.”