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Distinctively CHA
Challenges in the Task of Training Children — Part 3
July 22, 2024
Because smartphones have increased the ease and opportunity to communicate virtually through a wide variety of apps, the amount of time spent in face-to-face communication has decreased dramatically. What are the differences between digital and face-to-face communication and do those differences matter? Real-world interactions are, and have been for thousands of years, characterized by four features that are significantly affected by digital communications. Consider the following from the article entitled "The Terrible Costs of a Phone-Based Childhood", published in The Atlantic, March 13, 2024.
#1 Real-world interactions are embodied, meaning that we use our hands, facial expressions, and body language to communicate. Virtual interactions, in contrast, mostly rely on language alone. We are likely to produce a generation who will be less comfortable and less skilled at interacting in person when they become adults.
#2 Real-world interactions are synchronous, meaning sending and receiving communications happen at the same time. We learn to use subtle cues about timing and conversational turn taking in order to get “in sync” with another. Digital communications lack this synchrony. There is less real laughter, more room for misinterpretation, and more stress after a comment gets no immediate response.
#3 Real-world communications primarily involve one-to-one communication, or sometimes one-to-several. Online communications can be carried on asynchronously with dozens of others, which diminishes the depth achieved in all of them. With a large audience, one’s reputation is always on the line. An error or poor “performance” can damage social standings with large numbers of peers. These communications tend to be more performative and, therefore, more anxiety-inducing than real-world one-to-one conversations.
#4 Real-world interactions usually take place within communities that have a high bar for entry and exit, so people are motivated to invest in relationships and restore relationships when hurt occurs. On many virtual networks, however, people can easily block others or quit when they are displeased. Relationships within such networks are usually much more disposable.
Online interactions can bring out antisocial behavior that people never display in their real-world communities. These behaviors take their toll even on adults, who should be able to recognize the anxiety-producing features of life online. The negative effects on an adolescent in the early years of puberty, while their “experience expectant” brains are being formed by feedback from their online social interactions, are greatly increased.
Next time. . . Are smartphones related to other harms in addition to those having to do with communications?
Challenges in the Task of Training Children — Part 2
July 12, 2024
What happened in the early 2010s that altered adolescent development and worsened mental health? According to the Pew Research Center, in 2011, only 23% of teens had a smartphone. By 2015, that number had risen to 73%, and a quarter of teens said they were online “almost constantly.”
God created humans to experience His creation. Children experience the world around them primarily through the medium of play. For children of all ages, one of the most powerful drivers of learning is the strong motivation to play. One of the crucial aspects of play is physical risk-taking. Teens have an even greater desire for increased risks and thrills, when failure may carry more serious consequences. Young people who are deprived of opportunities for risk-taking and independent exploration will, on average, develop into more anxious and risk-averse adults.
The pervasive use of smartphones has altered childhood. “Once young people began carrying the entire internet in their pockets, available to them day and night, it altered their daily experiences and developmental pathways across the board. Friendship, dating, sexuality, exercise, sleep, academics, politics, family dynamics, identity—all were affected.” Real-world experiences have been replaced by virtual activities that are nothing like the read-world experiences that God created children to encounter.
The smartphone has changed childhood from shared outdoor experiences to isolated indoor virtual experiences. Perhaps the most devastating cost of the new phone-based childhood is the collapse of time spent interacting with other people face-to-face.
Next time… what are the differences between digital communications and real-world, face-to-face communications, and what are the consequences of swapping the latter for the former?
Challenges in the Task of Training Children — Part 1
July 01, 2024
God gives children to parents (Psalm 127:3-5) and gives parents the responsibility of training their children (Deut. 6:7-9, Prov. 22:6, Eph. 6:4). Many parents seek help in that process from others, often church and school. Christian Heritage Academy exists for that very purpose — “to assist the home and the church in building a solid foundation in the life of each student.”
While Satan uses a variety of tools to bring about harm in families, to “kill, steal, and destroy” (John 10:10), evidence is mounting that the primary tool for harm in our culture is smartphones in general, and social media in particular.
Consider the following facts adapted from Jonathan Haidt’s recent #1 New York Times bestseller entitled The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness and summarized in an article entitled "The Terrible Costs of a Phone-Based Childhood", published in The Atlantic, March 13, 2024.
Something went suddenly and horribly wrong for adolescents in the early 2010s. By now you’ve likely seen the statistics: rates of depression and anxiety in the United States—fairly stable in the 2000s—rose by more than 50 percent in many studies from 2010 to 2019. The suicide rate rose 48 percent for adolescents ages 10 to 19. For girls ages 10 to 14, it rose 131 percent.
The problem was not limited to the U.S.: Similar patterns emerged around the same time in in numerous countries around the world. By a variety of measures and in a variety of countries, the members of Generation Z (born in and after 1996) are suffering from anxiety, depression, self-harm, and related disorders at levels higher than any other generation for which we have data.
The decline in mental health is just one of many signs that something went awry. Loneliness and friendlessness among American teens began to surge around 2012. Academic achievement went down, too. According to “The Nation’s Report Card,” scores in reading and math began to decline for U.S. students after 2012, reversing decades of slow but generally steady increases. PISA, the major international measure of educational trends, shows that declines in math, reading, and science happened globally, also beginning in the early 2010s.
What happened in the early 2010s that altered adolescent development and worsened mental health? The answer can be stated simply: “Once young people began carrying the entire internet in their pockets, available to them day and night, it altered their daily experiences and developmental pathways across the board.”
Next time. . . How have smartphones affected childhood?