Who else wants to use their time to actually feel better?
Posted: October 7, 2018
Who else wants to use their time to actually feel better?
Technology is making everyone frustrated.
40 hours is about enough work for most of us for the week, right? Can you guess the average amount of screen time for ages 8 to 18?
Busying themselves on their phone to avoid awkward social interactions is the norm with a group of pre-teens.
44.5 hours. Let's talk.
Why can technology be a problem?
When their boyfriend breaks up with them they go to their peers. When their peers are impossible to get along with, they make a new friend. When group projects in school are stressful, they use their resources to get through. When they don't feel like their parents understand them, they go to adults they can trust to work it out. When times get hard, it is a teenager's task to to "figure it out." It is a problem because kids use it to escape to when times get hard.
Technology presents a world of beautiful images. There is the internet there to provide unlimited amount of noise to fill the silence if you feel lonely. There is immediate gratification of texting 20 friends and seeing who replies. There is very minimal risk of failure or rejection. It makes you feel better or less bad. Until the next difficult life task.
Social Skills are affected.
As a result of using the electronic bandaid, learning to deal with pain is not necessary. Learning to navigate tricky social waters is not practiced. These teenagers have very little patience in face to face interactions. They are less in tune with each other or able to read social cues. This limits their ability to create a peaceful, social engagement with peers. They expect that face-to-face interactions will be difficult. They have high anxiety about going to school. Being with peers or presenting in front of people feels like a very large risk of rejection.
Spiritual Life is Squeezed Out.
It is a problem when it comes to their social skills, but also in their spiritual life. Filling every lonely, unsure or boring moment with scrolling leaves little time for thinking. Those gaps in the schedule would have been great times to reflect on life and discuss prayers with God. Now, there is no time for thinking. Only consuming.
How often are they meditating? Kidding... but really!
Does your teen have frustration tolerance?
Between school and screen time, how much real life is your preteen or teenager living?
Do they have time enough to think and engage with God (if they wanted to)?
It's our job as adults to guide the kiddos in our life in how to set boundaries on technology in order to fully experience life. Numbing out is tempting, but it robs us from the opportunity to grow out of the awkwardness and pain.