Educated middle and upper class parents who make their living in technology believe screens are addictive and do not allow their own kids to use them. That is not the case for kids in poor families —
www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/style/phones-children-silicon-valley.html
www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/style/digital-divide-screens-schools.html
“It wasn’t long ago that the worry was that rich students would have access to the internet earlier, gaining tech skills and creating a digital divide. Schools ask students to do homework online, while only about two-thirds of people in the U.S. have broadband internet service. But now, as Silicon Valley’s parents increasingly panic over the impact screens have on their children and move toward screen-free lifestyles, worries over a new digital divide are rising. It could happen that the children of poorer and middle-class parents will be raised by screens, while the children of Silicon Valley’s elite will be going back to wooden toys and the luxury of human interaction.”
“A wariness that has been slowly brewing is turning into a regionwide consensus: The benefits of screens as a learning tool are overblown, and the risks for addiction and stunting development seem high. The debate in Silicon Valley now is about how much exposure to phones is O.K.”
One executive follows the following for his children: “12 tech rules. They include: no phones until the summer before high school, no screens in bedrooms, network-level content blocking, no social media until age 13, no iPads at all and screen time schedules enforced by Google Wifi that he controls from his phone. Bad behavior? The child goes offline for 24 hours.”
“Lower-income teenagers spend an average of eight hours and seven minutes a day using screens for entertainment, while higher income peers spend five hours and 42 minutes, according to research by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit media watchdog. (This study counted each screen separately, so a child texting on a phone and watching TV for one hour counted as two hours of screens being used.) Two studies that look at race have found that white children are exposed to screens significantly less than African-American and Hispanic children.”
“And parents say there is a growing technological divide between public and private schools even in the same community.”
Counseling with Elaine Korngold
In my private practice, I work with parents concerned that screens are addictive for kids. We address Internet Addiction behaviors and patterns and assess what behaviors or ways of thinking need to change to help families go back to their authentic core values. Contact me to learn more.