By: Madison Held
Members of the Smith family sit in different corners of their living room. In front of them, the TV is on and a movie is playing. Both the parents and all three of their kids are reflecting between their personal technology and the movie in front of them. This is what you would see if you were to walk into the Smith’s house any night.
Americans now spend an average of 4.7 hours per day on their phone, according to a 2015 Informate Mobile Intelligence study.
It’s rare that families sit together for a meal or gather to have a conversation without their technology. Toys and games have no longer become the center of a family bonding night and is now all about the screens in front of you.
I believe that technology has taken over the time families would usually spend together and is now teaching bad social skills.
Parents often say their kids are the ones to blame when it comes to the overuse of technology; however, this could often be found as false. For most kids, their biggest role models are their parents. They then look up to their parents and want to be just like them. If this means constantly being on their phones and have some sort of screen in front of them, kids might go for it. Technology is even all over TV and movies giving more exposure of “how cool” it is to be attached to your phone.
Dr. Jim Taylor from the University of San Francisco wrote in and article for the Huffington Post, “Is Technology Creating a Family Divide,” that families can be equally guilty of contributing to distance that appears to be increasing in families.
“They are often wrapped up in their own technology, for example, talking on their mobile phones, checking email, or watching TV,” Taylor said, “when they could be talking to, playing with, or generally connecting with their children.”
However, there are situations where kids have a role in creating a distance. Taylor said that because everyone is so busy with work, school, and extracurricular activities, there’s less time for families to spend together. Then add technology to the mix, and it only gets worse. Once kids are done with their extracurricular activities, they want to check their phones for all updates on social media. This means that most kids don’t even bother reaching out to their parents or other family members. This is creating a lack of face to face experiences and social skills they will need later in life.
“It’s gotten to the point where it seems like parents and children are emailing and texting each other more than they’re talking — even when they’re at home together,” said Taylor. Taylor wrote that the size of homes has grown by 50 percent, meaning family members can retreat to their own corners of the house, so there’s less chance that parents and children will see each other.
So what can families do to make sure the face to face connection is still there? A regular family dinner minus screens would be a great way to start.
Brad Williams, who is also a Chick-fil-A franchise owner in Suwanee, Georgia, has witnessed a serious phone trend not only in his home, but in his restaurant dining room.
The common and popular fast food chain Chick-fil-A has started their role in the process of putting phones away for a meal. Realizing that a “no phone rule” worked at his own dinner table, Williams took the same idea to his Chick-fil-A. This created the “Cell Phone Coop” challenge. According to the Chick-fil-A website, the restaurant places a small, square box, (a.k.a. the Coop) on each table, with a simple challenge: enjoy a meal without the distraction of cellphones and receive a free Chick-fil-A Icedream. Guests complete the challenge successfully only if cellphones remain in the Coop untouched for their entire meal.
The challenge is starting to spread throughout other Chick-fil-A restaurants and is starting to teach people what a proper meal is like. So the next time your family sits down for dinner or to play a board game, maybe coop up all your phones and enjoy the company of each other instead of your screens.
