Why kids should have dinner like in the 90s without a smart phone?
Recently I watched the Neflix show The Social Dilema and started reflecting the annual family dinner with my grandparents, 10 cousins and 10 nephews/nieces over Christmas Eve. There’s no doubt that the daughter of my elder cousin from my mother’s side is our favorite among all of them over the years. She’s very different from other kids.
It’s not because she’s the youngest of four students from her elementary school who got selected to the city chorus team.
In this modern world, 50% of 11-years-old own a cell phone according to Harvard Business Review.
- She’s the only child who does not play an iPad or an iPhone for hours during dinners or after. She lives like kids in 1990s when there was no smart phone for everyone at home.
Not only that, she likes interrupting us playing on our iPhones in the living room and invites us to watch her dance and sing after family dinner.
Kids in the 1990s?
- Has absolute 0 attachment to an iPhone
In the 1990s when the mother calls out children and family to have dinner, everyone will be having a meal without playing mobile games or watching YouTube videos on the phone. Starting around 2011, the manner of the family dinner changes quite a lot. Even my 50+ years old mother sometimes can’t stop watching her favorite TV shows on her phone that she had to put the phone at the table.
My niece has absolutely 0 attachment to an iPhone.
At dinner, my niece talks about what stories she read about at school, which kid got punishment from teacher after beating up other kid with a stuffed animal, and which kid she likes most and dislikes most etc. She also asks other family member quietly if she can have one more bite on her favorite desserts so she could enjoy the sweet dish behind her mother’s back.
She’s present at the moment.
Meanwhile, most of the nieces and nephews just finish the meals as fast as possible, leave the dinner table, and play on the iPad in the living room.
2. Build her own social circle through games
She’s not tired of inviting family member to watch her sing and dance, just like kids in the 1990s who like inviting grandparents and parents to watch them play toys. In my childhood during the 1990s my grandparents played quite a lot of checker games with my cousins and me after dinners, instead of playing on an iPhone without talking to each other.
Another data on Harvard Business Review shows that
90% of tweens (10–12) play online games
Does technology bring a better life to children?
I started asking if the breakthrough technology development in the past 10 years brings more harm than goods to children under 10 years old.
- The number of video games available to children grows significantly after the smart phone industry takes off.
- Children watch more shows on iPad in their parents’ cars than reading books and enjoying the views on the ride.
The Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma tells a story of a family who struggled for keeping smart phones off their teenage daughter and sons and , interprets the stories with detailed scientific studies about how smart phone is correlated to teenage depression. The documentary shows alarming data from the Center of Disease and Control and Prevention that
Since 2009, the US Hospital admissions for non-fatal self-harms increase +62% for teenage girl (15–19) and +189% for pre-teen girls(10–14).
The more tough question is
How can we build a better real life experience for children?
- Next time when you see your children feel bored and start crying at dinner table, you don’t throw an iPad to them to stop them crying. Talk to them and tell them stories.
- Next time when you go to a family dinner, you can put your smart phones away and show a good example to the younger ones.
- Instead of playing on your smart phone after dinner, you can read books or watch the children play toys (or sing or play soccer at the yard). None of our family member know music theory, so we can’t give her any advice in her training. However, our applause for her solo show in my grandparents’ living room makes her feel like singing at the stage of the Disney World.
We should not wait for iOS and Android to take actions to help children to reduce their screen time.
It’s impossible to stop children using smart phone 24/7 as there are quite a lot of excellent education programs on Apple store and Google Play. We can learn from what we used to love to do with our parents and family during free time in our childhood in the 80s and 90s and help the next generation to have a less addictive but more healthy relationship with their smart phones.
