This was a nice read to substitute for my usual morning glassy eyed scroll through Instagram. I always noticed a lot of the discussion around smart phones in the family is oriented around protective school-age kids as long as possible. Which makes sense because many parents of school-aged kids were in this world longer before smart phones became a normal part of it. However, I notice so many parents in my generation, myself included, find a great deal of their community online-sometimes connected to an in person community, and sometimes not.
For example I am part of a moms group that has multiple events per month, but also a constant stream of virtual communication between each of those events (posting pictures, asking for recommendations etc.). The constant virtual stream of consciousness conversations and posts also help include the working or postpartum moms who aren’t as able to come to our in person events. And this isn’t even including all of the ways younger millennial and gen z moms depend on technology to stay in touch with friends from prior towns and cities lived in since we are a very “transient” generation.
All of that is to say, technology plays a very real part in building and maintaining friendships for young moms and “just finding an in person community” often increases the use of technology, rather than decreasing it (I help manage a Facebook group of 700+ local moms and whew!) and that in turn can get very exhausting. How do we young moms divest ourselves from our phones without fearing the loss of that connection? That’s what I ponder…and maybe someone in my generation will have a book about it in a few years 🤣
Thank you for this perspective. As an extrovert who has always thrived with lots and lots of friends & lots and lots of group outings, I have recently realized that this model might not be best for me in my "mom era" and I have to discern how to maintain friendships without being a community leader and frequent groupchat participant. I think those kinds of communities are also very valuable for moms who don't have the greatest support system...and I am blessed with living near family, so I don't necessarily need the constant validation and support that kind of social media driven community provides.
I would suggest that you remain open to considering those groups and new opportunities to gather, but that you also accept the lesson you learn when you try a particular group or activity a couple of times and it just doesn't end up working for you. Sometimes a big group is too much. It just is, and that's okay!
It might help to think up some provide alternative gatherings -- invite those particular friends for coffee at your place or for a walk or whatever it is that you like. It's exhausting to be always doing social things that seem to work for others but that you find draining, just because they feel like the best available option. Don't be a perfectionist, obviously, but don't repeatedly invest in social situations that don't restore you.
I myself often find that I go through cycles of extroversion and introversion -- times when I seek out and enjoy boisterous, large group activities, and times when these overwhelm me and I need to focus on intimate gatherings and even solitude. That's been helpful for me to realize. I just have changing needs and even preferences, and that's fine.
Absolutely. It's not an easy problem to solve, and we need these things to be addressed instead of glossed over when we are talking about cutting back on tech use. I had an article a while back at Public Discourse about "adding before you subtract" -- we can't expect a young mom in the trenches, for example, to just do without adult socializing altogether as a result of ditching her smartphone.
I think we can find creative solutions, though, other than just sticking with social media as our main social outlet. I think part of this is making sure we're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater; I have not had a smartphone for years now and I do not miss it AT ALL, but I am glad that I still have a dumbphone that allows me to do some texting (although not as much as I used to). Substack essays, e-mails, phone calls, limited texting, and the like can be a great part of social discourse and interpersonal support. But my opinion is that social media generally speaking is a net negative, as are smartphones. We need a combination of boldness and nuance in figuring out what works for us as individuals and families.
I too ran to the store to grab Erin’s book after Ruth and Peco’s interview. It’s been so good and informative. I’m about halfway through it now and it is not only reaffirming some decisions we’ve made as a family but challenging us as the parents too!
It really is! The tech inversion part makes me pause too. “My kids should be able to just enjoy life without all the gamification, darn it!” stomping my feet. But, I also see the wisdom here, especially for families that are used to a tech-y world and all the systems they have in place to keep us addicted to it.
She definitely has me puzzling through what parts would make sense for our family (catch and reward) and what just wouldn’t (going completely 100% no screens). I’m looking for some healthy balance but mostly she is just hitting the nail on the head.
Putting this on hold at the library now! Thanks Dixie. I have a love hate relationship with my phone and computer so am always looking for strategies to live a fuller life, while still existing in the modern world!
It's so hard! I think we are not in a great time socially in our country and so ordinary life is not meeting our needs for social support. So just opting out of the digital world just leaves us with ourselves and our lack of support -- we really need not just to opt out, but to build up our real-world culture and social life.
I think this is why our in person book club is my favorite thing each month. It elevates the conversation above just mom things and leads to deeper insight and shared ideas over the months and years. And then add on the work fiction can do on my spiritual life!
I do, but I think a good school can help it, too. I have found personally that without extended family, without more neighborhood kids, with restrictive parenting norms, etc., homeschooling can create a tremendous temptation to mothers to escape reality multiple times per hour per day via smartphone/computer/social media. (I mean...that's what my friends tell me. Ahem.) You just never. get. a. break. (Until you learn that you have to create deliberate, healthy, supported breaks for yourself!)
Families need social space, support networks, and time to thrive. I think this can be achieved through homeschooling, for sure, but a school that is really oriented toward child development and learning -- one that is tech cautious/resistant, at a bare minimum -- can build a great network that supports families.
It's a normal temptation borne out of a real need! But we can find better ways to meet that need than the smartphone...but we have to really face finding them, asking for help, rearranging things, making the kids sometimes make space for Mom's needs -- it's tough. But we aren't tempted to the smartphone because we're weak or bad. It's because we need community!
I love this take. It resonates so much! We have a pretty good community around us but the addictive nature of my phone and computer draws me in. Regular fasts and breaks seem to be helpful, but it’s too easy to jump right back in and go back to bad habits.
So frustrating! I will say that I have found that being on Twitter for sharing/networking has been pretty useful for me professionally, but it has not led me to also be on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, etc. I think you could make a decision to use WhatsApp for work, for example, without diving totally back into all the social media apps and constantly being on a smartphone. I know that for me, strictly limiting the number of tools (devices or apps) has been more effective than trying to use lots of tools for only one or two purposes.
Great review, Dixie, and lots of interesting thoughts here that I contemplate often. I agree with you that it's a little off-putting to use the same 'techniques/strategies' that tech companies use to 'engage' our kids. Sometimes I think - does this all have to be so technical? Do we really need to be told how to play, love, and enjoy one another?
My kids are very young - 18 months and 3 1/2 - so I don't ever want to sound like I know what I'm doing in this regard, as we have many challenges ahead. But when it comes to creating a family culture, my husband and I to go first (as Erin rightly suggests) - you can talk circles around kids all day, but if they see you do something other than what you SAY they will point it out! They are so sensitive to hypocrisy! Nothing like a very verbal, observant toddler to keep you accountable.
So my husband switched to a flip phone, I *try* to put quite strict boundaries on my smartphone use (esp. around the kids), neither one of us uses social media, the house is stacked (chaotically so) with books to explore, and we don't have a TV (we have a desktop computer in our bedroom for after-the-kids-in-bed movie nights or future family slumber party movie nights - atm the kids do no screens/tv). And the kids happily follow suit - they are very happy and interested in each other, in us, in the animals, in music, in independent play, and books.
Both my husband and I are largely work-from-home entrepreneurs and technology/computer use is a vital part of that - and my toddler loves to see what audio editing looks like! I don't see an issue with this, especially since we keep the computer separate, at a desk, and not in our hands a la a smartphone. I'm very grateful in many ways for the flexibility and possibilities technology has created for our family.
I think the complexity will likely come when peers become more involved - and when kids naturally become very interested in doing what their friends are doing. It is what makes it so hard to be an 'opt-out' family because you hate to be 'that mom' with the strict rules etc, but it seems so necessary. At the moment with such small children and living on a farm with so much 'real world' excitement it is quite easy to live screen-free/screen-lite, but I'm aware our biggest challenges still lie ahead. I am optimistic, however, that with this growing awareness among parents about the dangers of tech/social media in particular, it won't be as 'extreme' to be a screen-free family.
Katie, my kids are a few years older than you (9, 9, and 5.5) and it is more complex when peers become involved, but just last week I had a conversation with a neighbor where I asked "Are you thinking of getting K a phone?" and her response was, "Not anytime soon, probably high school?" and literally my response was, "Oh yay, me too!!" We then had a 30 minute conversation about resources that support phone free living (Let Grow, the Wait Until 8th pledge, etc), we authorized each other to share this information with other parents (so they can be empowered to say, "You won't be the only kid without a phone, I know for a fact E, D, and K don't have phones and won't have them for a long time") and we discussed differences in our approaches (she has sole custody of her son but with issues around safety in order not to get hauled back to family court she has to proceed with caution in certain scenarios, etc) It was so heartening! It is hard sometimes to be "that mom" but that one conversation gave me a lot of encouragement. Don't be afraid to share what is important to you, you may find you have more allies than you think!
Amy, this makes such a difference. My 13-year-old and her peers largely do not have phones and have limited computer access and that has been such a help -- knowing that we have a little circle that is on more-or-less the same page with this stuff. But occasionally we will encounter teens or kids that are really immersed in the smartphone world and it's a reminder of how good we've got it.
"Do we really need to be told how to play, love, and enjoy one another?" It's so depressing. I wonder...I'm not sure if we do or we don't. My family and social circles are already both pretty tech-cautious, and so I found myself alarmed by some of the things I was reading in the book -- is it really so bad "out there"? And so I want to be cautious -- I don't want to be alarmist. There's a reality that parents need help, but also that they need to face the situation and see what they can come up with. Parents know to look in their children's eyes. I hope it's not really as bad as all that out there, that we need TikTok to teach us how to be human. Because...we cannot and should not learn that from an app/machine.
I have a three-year-old daughter, so I am thinking about social media use a lot so that I am prepared for the inevitable conversations her and I have about it down the road.
My overall thesis is akin to "monkey see, monkey do", which has prompted me to delete all social media apps from my phone. There is very little reason for me to be on my phone when I'm with her, so she won't grow up with parents who have their head in a phone as they scroll all day.
Because I'm not on social all the time, I am actually doing things... You know... hobbies that leave me fulfilled. Again, my hope is she takes notice of her father and mother who live fulfilled lives despite being off social media for the vast majority of their waking hours.
If social media isn't a part of our home life in any meaningful way and we do our best to involve ourselves with likeminded people, most of her key developmental years will be spent screen and social media-free. This should create a pathway to a life for her that doesn't hold much social stock in algorithm and online friends.
Sounds like you're doing some wonderful things, Andrew! It's true that modeling is very powerful, and young children will start to associate whatever their parents do with "grown up behavior." If being on a smartphone all the time is seen as normal grown-up behavior, there will be no dissuading the kids as they age.
This was a nice read to substitute for my usual morning glassy eyed scroll through Instagram. I always noticed a lot of the discussion around smart phones in the family is oriented around protective school-age kids as long as possible. Which makes sense because many parents of school-aged kids were in this world longer before smart phones became a normal part of it. However, I notice so many parents in my generation, myself included, find a great deal of their community online-sometimes connected to an in person community, and sometimes not.
For example I am part of a moms group that has multiple events per month, but also a constant stream of virtual communication between each of those events (posting pictures, asking for recommendations etc.). The constant virtual stream of consciousness conversations and posts also help include the working or postpartum moms who aren’t as able to come to our in person events. And this isn’t even including all of the ways younger millennial and gen z moms depend on technology to stay in touch with friends from prior towns and cities lived in since we are a very “transient” generation.
All of that is to say, technology plays a very real part in building and maintaining friendships for young moms and “just finding an in person community” often increases the use of technology, rather than decreasing it (I help manage a Facebook group of 700+ local moms and whew!) and that in turn can get very exhausting. How do we young moms divest ourselves from our phones without fearing the loss of that connection? That’s what I ponder…and maybe someone in my generation will have a book about it in a few years 🤣
Thank you for this perspective. As an extrovert who has always thrived with lots and lots of friends & lots and lots of group outings, I have recently realized that this model might not be best for me in my "mom era" and I have to discern how to maintain friendships without being a community leader and frequent groupchat participant. I think those kinds of communities are also very valuable for moms who don't have the greatest support system...and I am blessed with living near family, so I don't necessarily need the constant validation and support that kind of social media driven community provides.
I would suggest that you remain open to considering those groups and new opportunities to gather, but that you also accept the lesson you learn when you try a particular group or activity a couple of times and it just doesn't end up working for you. Sometimes a big group is too much. It just is, and that's okay!
It might help to think up some provide alternative gatherings -- invite those particular friends for coffee at your place or for a walk or whatever it is that you like. It's exhausting to be always doing social things that seem to work for others but that you find draining, just because they feel like the best available option. Don't be a perfectionist, obviously, but don't repeatedly invest in social situations that don't restore you.
I myself often find that I go through cycles of extroversion and introversion -- times when I seek out and enjoy boisterous, large group activities, and times when these overwhelm me and I need to focus on intimate gatherings and even solitude. That's been helpful for me to realize. I just have changing needs and even preferences, and that's fine.
Absolutely. It's not an easy problem to solve, and we need these things to be addressed instead of glossed over when we are talking about cutting back on tech use. I had an article a while back at Public Discourse about "adding before you subtract" -- we can't expect a young mom in the trenches, for example, to just do without adult socializing altogether as a result of ditching her smartphone.
I think we can find creative solutions, though, other than just sticking with social media as our main social outlet. I think part of this is making sure we're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater; I have not had a smartphone for years now and I do not miss it AT ALL, but I am glad that I still have a dumbphone that allows me to do some texting (although not as much as I used to). Substack essays, e-mails, phone calls, limited texting, and the like can be a great part of social discourse and interpersonal support. But my opinion is that social media generally speaking is a net negative, as are smartphones. We need a combination of boldness and nuance in figuring out what works for us as individuals and families.
I too ran to the store to grab Erin’s book after Ruth and Peco’s interview. It’s been so good and informative. I’m about halfway through it now and it is not only reaffirming some decisions we’ve made as a family but challenging us as the parents too!
It is chock full of ideas, isn't it? It's a hugely valuable resource for parents (even though I'm hesitant about the tech-inversion framing).
It really is! The tech inversion part makes me pause too. “My kids should be able to just enjoy life without all the gamification, darn it!” stomping my feet. But, I also see the wisdom here, especially for families that are used to a tech-y world and all the systems they have in place to keep us addicted to it.
She definitely has me puzzling through what parts would make sense for our family (catch and reward) and what just wouldn’t (going completely 100% no screens). I’m looking for some healthy balance but mostly she is just hitting the nail on the head.
So many ideas in this book!! But not a lot of pressure as to which particulars you follow...she does well with that.
Putting this on hold at the library now! Thanks Dixie. I have a love hate relationship with my phone and computer so am always looking for strategies to live a fuller life, while still existing in the modern world!
It's so hard! I think we are not in a great time socially in our country and so ordinary life is not meeting our needs for social support. So just opting out of the digital world just leaves us with ourselves and our lack of support -- we really need not just to opt out, but to build up our real-world culture and social life.
I think this is why our in person book club is my favorite thing each month. It elevates the conversation above just mom things and leads to deeper insight and shared ideas over the months and years. And then add on the work fiction can do on my spiritual life!
But I’m excited to read this book and get some ideas and strategies for myself and my family! Do you think homeschooling helps this culture?
I do, but I think a good school can help it, too. I have found personally that without extended family, without more neighborhood kids, with restrictive parenting norms, etc., homeschooling can create a tremendous temptation to mothers to escape reality multiple times per hour per day via smartphone/computer/social media. (I mean...that's what my friends tell me. Ahem.) You just never. get. a. break. (Until you learn that you have to create deliberate, healthy, supported breaks for yourself!)
Families need social space, support networks, and time to thrive. I think this can be achieved through homeschooling, for sure, but a school that is really oriented toward child development and learning -- one that is tech cautious/resistant, at a bare minimum -- can build a great network that supports families.
Oh Dixie I am going to be thinking about this for a long time. Thanks for your wise and insightful thoughts. I definitely feel this temptation!
It's a normal temptation borne out of a real need! But we can find better ways to meet that need than the smartphone...but we have to really face finding them, asking for help, rearranging things, making the kids sometimes make space for Mom's needs -- it's tough. But we aren't tempted to the smartphone because we're weak or bad. It's because we need community!
I love this take. It resonates so much! We have a pretty good community around us but the addictive nature of my phone and computer draws me in. Regular fasts and breaks seem to be helpful, but it’s too easy to jump right back in and go back to bad habits.
It’s so true! And difficult. I opted out of WhatsApp years ago but am really starting to feel that I need it for work and some newer connections.
So frustrating! I will say that I have found that being on Twitter for sharing/networking has been pretty useful for me professionally, but it has not led me to also be on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, etc. I think you could make a decision to use WhatsApp for work, for example, without diving totally back into all the social media apps and constantly being on a smartphone. I know that for me, strictly limiting the number of tools (devices or apps) has been more effective than trying to use lots of tools for only one or two purposes.
Great review, Dixie, and lots of interesting thoughts here that I contemplate often. I agree with you that it's a little off-putting to use the same 'techniques/strategies' that tech companies use to 'engage' our kids. Sometimes I think - does this all have to be so technical? Do we really need to be told how to play, love, and enjoy one another?
My kids are very young - 18 months and 3 1/2 - so I don't ever want to sound like I know what I'm doing in this regard, as we have many challenges ahead. But when it comes to creating a family culture, my husband and I to go first (as Erin rightly suggests) - you can talk circles around kids all day, but if they see you do something other than what you SAY they will point it out! They are so sensitive to hypocrisy! Nothing like a very verbal, observant toddler to keep you accountable.
So my husband switched to a flip phone, I *try* to put quite strict boundaries on my smartphone use (esp. around the kids), neither one of us uses social media, the house is stacked (chaotically so) with books to explore, and we don't have a TV (we have a desktop computer in our bedroom for after-the-kids-in-bed movie nights or future family slumber party movie nights - atm the kids do no screens/tv). And the kids happily follow suit - they are very happy and interested in each other, in us, in the animals, in music, in independent play, and books.
Both my husband and I are largely work-from-home entrepreneurs and technology/computer use is a vital part of that - and my toddler loves to see what audio editing looks like! I don't see an issue with this, especially since we keep the computer separate, at a desk, and not in our hands a la a smartphone. I'm very grateful in many ways for the flexibility and possibilities technology has created for our family.
I think the complexity will likely come when peers become more involved - and when kids naturally become very interested in doing what their friends are doing. It is what makes it so hard to be an 'opt-out' family because you hate to be 'that mom' with the strict rules etc, but it seems so necessary. At the moment with such small children and living on a farm with so much 'real world' excitement it is quite easy to live screen-free/screen-lite, but I'm aware our biggest challenges still lie ahead. I am optimistic, however, that with this growing awareness among parents about the dangers of tech/social media in particular, it won't be as 'extreme' to be a screen-free family.
Katie, my kids are a few years older than you (9, 9, and 5.5) and it is more complex when peers become involved, but just last week I had a conversation with a neighbor where I asked "Are you thinking of getting K a phone?" and her response was, "Not anytime soon, probably high school?" and literally my response was, "Oh yay, me too!!" We then had a 30 minute conversation about resources that support phone free living (Let Grow, the Wait Until 8th pledge, etc), we authorized each other to share this information with other parents (so they can be empowered to say, "You won't be the only kid without a phone, I know for a fact E, D, and K don't have phones and won't have them for a long time") and we discussed differences in our approaches (she has sole custody of her son but with issues around safety in order not to get hauled back to family court she has to proceed with caution in certain scenarios, etc) It was so heartening! It is hard sometimes to be "that mom" but that one conversation gave me a lot of encouragement. Don't be afraid to share what is important to you, you may find you have more allies than you think!
Amy, this makes such a difference. My 13-year-old and her peers largely do not have phones and have limited computer access and that has been such a help -- knowing that we have a little circle that is on more-or-less the same page with this stuff. But occasionally we will encounter teens or kids that are really immersed in the smartphone world and it's a reminder of how good we've got it.
"Do we really need to be told how to play, love, and enjoy one another?" It's so depressing. I wonder...I'm not sure if we do or we don't. My family and social circles are already both pretty tech-cautious, and so I found myself alarmed by some of the things I was reading in the book -- is it really so bad "out there"? And so I want to be cautious -- I don't want to be alarmist. There's a reality that parents need help, but also that they need to face the situation and see what they can come up with. Parents know to look in their children's eyes. I hope it's not really as bad as all that out there, that we need TikTok to teach us how to be human. Because...we cannot and should not learn that from an app/machine.
I have a three-year-old daughter, so I am thinking about social media use a lot so that I am prepared for the inevitable conversations her and I have about it down the road.
My overall thesis is akin to "monkey see, monkey do", which has prompted me to delete all social media apps from my phone. There is very little reason for me to be on my phone when I'm with her, so she won't grow up with parents who have their head in a phone as they scroll all day.
Because I'm not on social all the time, I am actually doing things... You know... hobbies that leave me fulfilled. Again, my hope is she takes notice of her father and mother who live fulfilled lives despite being off social media for the vast majority of their waking hours.
If social media isn't a part of our home life in any meaningful way and we do our best to involve ourselves with likeminded people, most of her key developmental years will be spent screen and social media-free. This should create a pathway to a life for her that doesn't hold much social stock in algorithm and online friends.
Sounds like you're doing some wonderful things, Andrew! It's true that modeling is very powerful, and young children will start to associate whatever their parents do with "grown up behavior." If being on a smartphone all the time is seen as normal grown-up behavior, there will be no dissuading the kids as they age.