Blast from The Past: The Day My Three-Year-Old Discovered Multitasking

Today we’re revisiting a post from a few years ago “The Day My Three-Year-Old Discovered Multitasking”:

I recently overheard a conversation between my three-year-old son, Kavi, and my husband. Kavi was about to go to bed and had only a couple minutes left to play. Dada asked him to choose how he wanted to spend his remaining time. Kavi said, “I have a great idea, dada! I can play iPad AND play Legos at the same time!!!”

Hoo boy, I thought. My son is becoming a multitasker at age three. Already dissatisfied with the pleasure of any single activity, he is trying to divide his attention between two things (one of which is a mobile device) thinking it will be more fun and he won’t have to miss out. Is this an expression of the dreaded FOMO, fear of missing out, rearing its head so early?

And thus followed a mental checklist of my potential parenting failures. Two stand out:

1. I multitask too much in front of him. I am definitely a multitasker, but one who makes strong efforts to put away my devices when I am with my family. I don’t always succeed, so have I become a bad role model?
2. I don’t encourage him to enjoy the process of doing and learning. As I’ve blogged about before, one way of thinking about styles of learning is making the following distinction: we can focus on and enjoy the process of learning, or we can learn with the goal of obtaining rewards (praise, grades, etc,…). If Kavi is so interested in multitasking, perhaps this is because he doesn’t fully enjoy the process of doing a single activity.

Then I thought on a more hopeful note, maybe I’ve done something very right, teaching him 21^st century skills and facilitating his mental acuity:

1. Multitasking in moderation is useful! Certainly, at this moment in time, people could be at a disadvantage if they are not able to take advantage of multitasking opportunities to gather information, learn, or accomplish goals – in moderation. So, the fact that it occurred to him to multitask two things he likes to do could simply indicate that his cognitive development is moving along nicely.
2.  Maybe he is learning to augment his creativity via technology. Perhaps his thought was – well, I’m hitting a wall with new things to build with Legos so maybe I can use the iPad to come up with more ideas. But who knows what he was thinking. So I asked him.

The conversation went something like this:

Me: Hey sweetie, do you remember when you told daddy that you wanted to play iPad and Legos and the same time?

Kavi: mumbles something.

Me: What’s that?

Kavi: Yes, I think so.

Me: Why did you want to do iPad and Legos at the same time?

Kavi:  Because it’s the same kind of fun.

Me: The same kind of fun?

Kavi:  Yes. First you do iPad, then you do Legos. iPad, Legos, iPad, Legos….

Me:  But you also play Legos alone, just Legos.

Kavi: But that would be boring!

Me: Really? I see you do that all the time.

Kavi: Yes…..

At this point, I decided to drop it. So, what does this little bit of anecdotal evidence mean? I have no idea. But I think the bottom line is that I know my son and I’m not too worried. He is already quite good at focusing for long periods of time (he can build with Legos for hours if you let him). Perhaps, though, there is something I can do better. I could focus more on promoting his JOMO  – the joy of missing out. It’s the feeling that what you’re doing right now, at this moment, is exactly the perfect thing to do.

 

Is Your Child Using Devices Too Much? Apply the Delight Principle

Many of us parents worry about the potential negative effects of technology – particularly mobile technology – on our children. But we have precious little science out there that can help us figure out the costs and benefits, risks and returns. Heck, we’ve had television sets in our homes for over 80 years and we still don’t know a lot about its effects on kids.

But putting our kids in front of technology is sometimes hard to resist. Your kid is having a tantrum on the grocery line? Bring up a movie on the iPad. Children whining at the restaurant? Hand them your iPhone and see their little smiling faces and glazed-over eyes light up from the warm glow of the screen.

However, these solutions are often tinged with parental guilt and a nagging feeling that maybe we shouldn’t be doing this quite so much. To figure out how much is too much, I apply what I call the delight principle – and it’s perhaps not what it sounds like. It’s not experiencing the (yes) exquisite delight of  that whining/crying/fussing/annoying behavior stopping as quickly as if you pressed the mute button. Rather, it’s the idea that if we’re putting devices in our children’s hands so much that we’re losing opportunities to delight in them and enjoy their wonderful little selves, then we might want to reevaluate.

In a nutshell, devices can be used in a “disconnecting” way that, over time, can reduce a child’s experience of that  loving twinkle in your eye, that unconditional positive regard that is the cornerstone of a happy childhood.

This notion – show your child that you delight in them – is obvious in many ways.  But I think that in the cacophony of all the “expert” parenting advice out there – from free range parenting to attachment parenting – this simple instinct that every parent has is easy to lose track of. When children are NOT being delightful (often!), devices are not necessarily a parent’s best friend. Here are a few ways that delight can be blocked when devices are used to disconnect during frustrating situations:

1. Remember to twinkle: Children need to see themselves literally reflected in our eyes in the form of that loving twinkle. It’s not that we need to praise them (and indeed there is good research coming out now about the downside of praise) but rather we need to take joy in their accomplishments, mirror their journey of self-discovery, and be our children’s promoters (as distinct from praisers). Putting devices in front of our kids “too much” has the effect of directly, physically blocking that twinkle. We need to trust our guts as parents on how much twinkle we want to block and make a mindful choice.

2. Share your child’s world: Take time to see the world from your child’s perspective. Every parent knows that it’s a magical place. Explore the world together, discuss ideas, point out things that are interesting or puzzling or wonderful. Listen to what they have to say about it, and if they don’t have much to say, just be with their experience of it and share your experience. Using a device to share in your child’s world seems like one of the best possible uses of a device. So, when we bring out a device, we can choose to use it to connect with our children or to tune them out.

3. Help your child find their own inner delightful child: Just in case you were starting to think I am a proponent of “just twinkle and let the hard stuff go” – not the case. By #3 here, I mean I think we shouldn’t be afraid to talk to our child about being civilized and polite – yes, delightful – human beings. I think that children who are explicitly taught and socialized to be polite, compassionate, and empathic will on average be delightful children and will grow up to be delightful adults. And the converse is also true. I think too much device time reduces opportunities to guide our children towards being delightful. Moreover,  we have to believe that a child is delightful for this to even work. With too much device time I think it’s harder to know how delightful our children truly can be.

There are definitely times when I choose to use a device to press that mute button and just take a break. But when this starts to become a family habit (are they on the device every time you go out to dinner, precluding opportunities to actually talk with one another? Are they spending so much time watching tv that you don’t know how their day at school was? ), it might make sense to do a delight check and make sure the technology choices we’re making for our children sit right with us.

 

 

 

The Happiest iPhone on the Block: Why Managing Your Digital Life is Like Good Parenting

When I started blogging a little over a year ago, I was a true social media skeptic. I drew more inspiration from thinkers like Sherry Turkle than Anil Dash. But my experiences with social media have turned this on its head. I’m still a skeptic in the sense that, as a scientist, I believe we need to know a lot more about how social media affect our lives for better and for worse. But I don’t feel the kind of concern I used to feel. Perhaps I’ve been tempted by the siren song of technology, lulled by a false sense of security engendered by the all-consuming digital embrace… but I don’t think so. I actually feel more in control and less overwhelmed by social media and other digital forms of communication than ever before. I feel they are tools, which I can selectively choose among and harness. I believe that a sense of well-being and balance in social media use is possible if we use some simple practices. The best metaphor I can think of for these practices is that they are the types of things that an effective and sensitive parent does. Here are the top five “parenting strategies” I’ve used to manage my social media burden:

1. Establish rules and set limits. Children thrive when there are consistent limits and structure. In the same way, our technology use needs rules and limits. If I don’t set limits on when and how I use social media, I’m more likely to get sucked into the black hole of keeping up with every tweet/text/email/post/newsfeed. I’m more easily distracted by social media, less present with others, and more likely to waste time and be less efficient because of it. Like all good parents, I try to create structure that is firm but fair. Harsh discipline might work in the short term, but the child usually rebels. So, I try not to be unreasonable or unrealistic about the rules (e.g., “I can only check email once a day, and for no more than 10 minutes” doesn’t work). I’ve tried to find a set of guidelines that work with my life and make me happy.
2. Monitor communication technology use. It’s 10 o’clock. Do you know how much social media you’ve used today? This is really about being mindful about how we’re using our technology. I prioritize my time – I only have so much time and attention in a day, and so I try to spend my mental and social capital wisely. I keep track and schedule times that I will use these tools, and know the times that they need to be put to bed.
3. Reinforce good behavior. It’s not only the amount of time we use social media or communication technology. It’s about how we use it and what it brings to our lives. I try to select digital communities that brings something positive to my life and that cultivates a positive peer network.
4. Selectively ignore. In parenting, the idea here is that if a child is showing a troublesome behavior, as long as it’s not destructive, it can be “extinguished” by just ignoring it. If there is no reaction, and no reward, there ceases to be a reason for the child to act that way. And then the child stops being a nuisance. In the similar vein, when I start to feel that my communication technology use is becoming burdensome and bossy, when I feel the pressure to respond to every message or push notification is too much, I start ignoring it. Most of us like the feeling of being connected, and hope that the dings and rings on our devices will bring something good into our lives or that stressful things can be averted and dealt with quickly. So, we start to check obsessively and end up spending dinner time with our family on a device, or walking into traffic with our eyes glued to our iPhone. When I begin to move in this direction, I reverse course and start to consciously and selectively ignore my devices in order to break the cycle.
5. Adapt technology use to fit my life. One key to being a good parent, I believe, is structuring your life so that it can accommodate children in support of their well-being and happiness. Some (in my opinion) not-so-great parents do the opposite, they expect not to change their lives at all and that children should just fit in. In contrast to my list of strategies thus far, when it comes to mobile technology and social media I try to follow the inspiration of the questionable parent: I fit technology into my life so that I remain able to do what I want and need to do without being sidetracked. If my life is becoming  more stressful and less organized because of social media burden, then I’m probably doing the opposite.

So remember, when that naughty stream of Facebook status updates are just too much to handle, you’re a week behind on your twitter feed, the pesky email inbox just won’t empty out, and those 10 texts – that are going to go unanswered for another few days – won’t stop bugging you, ask yourself: what would mom do?

Blocks and books better than electronic games for your toddler?

Thanks for this post, Dona Matthews! 

Blocks and books better than electronic games for your toddler?

I think one important take-home message is that we need to think through how electronic toys could be designed to better foster communication  and creativity.

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: Are Social Media Anti-Social?

This past Wednesday, I had the pleasure of being a panel member for a debate at the UN on social media. It launched the debate series “Point/Counter-point” organized by the United Nations Academic Impact team.  You can see the debate here.

We debated on the theme “social media are anti-social.” I was assigned to the team arguing in support of this point. I was unhappy with being asked to take this side – because I don’t agree with it! – but I was willing to do so with the understanding that I would argue that the very question of whether social media are anti-social is a faulty one. That is, like most technology, social media are neither good nor bad in and of themselves because the impact of social media depends on how they are used. Moreover, from a scientific standpoint, we know almost nothing about whether social media are actually making us more “anti-social” – less socially connected and less socially skilled.

After clearly stating this, however, my strategy was to highlight ways in which social media COULD be antisocial – emphasizing that the research to test these possibilities remains to be done. Perhaps that was one reason why we (my team mate BJ Mendelson and I) lost so spectacularly. At the same time, it was clear that the audience (whose votes determined the winning side) had already made up their minds before the debate even began. This was unsurprising because social media, as this era’s technological bugaboo, are absurdly polarizing. It’s either the scapegoat for all that is wrong, or the best hope for a utopian future.  And of course, the truth is always somewhere in between.

Coincidentally, this very debate had just been played out in relation to an inflammatory Newsweek article last week called “Is the Web Driving Us Mad?” A flurry of responses emerged, including an online Time Healthland article calling into serious question the Newsweek article’s review of evidence that the internet “makes” people crazy. Essentially, the Newsweek article is accused of being sensationalistic rather than doing what responsible journalism is supposed to do: (a) impartially seeking out and weighing the evidence that exists with a careful eye to the quality and direct implications of the science being cited, and (b) avoiding quoting scientific findings out of context.

I believe, however, that there is so much polarized debate because the research we need to weigh in on these issues has not yet been conducted. And that was my main point in the debate. We know almost nothing about the cause and effect relationship between social media or the internet and mental health: Are these technologies making us crazy, depressed, anxious, etc,…, or are people who are already troubled in offline life troubled no matter what the context? How do we measure anti-social, or crazy, or any other outcome that reflects the well-being of an individual? The plethora of unanswered questions makes for polarizing journalism.

One interesting possibility that the Newsweek article brought up and which I considered in the debate was the idea that social media may influence us in ways that are more powerful than other types of technology because they tap into something that is fundamentally rewarding to humans (and most mammals!): the need to be socially connected with others.

I made the point in the debate that, “Science is finding that social media are so rewarding, so motivating, that they essentially “highjack” our brain’s reward centers – the same brain areas that underlie drug addiction-  so that you see what all of us can attest to: people have difficulty disengaging from social media. They feel the need to constantly check their device for the next text, tweet, status update, or email. They feel obsessed. The documented existence of Facebook addiction attests to this. How many of us walk down the street, or eat dinner in a restaurant with our devices clutched in our hand or lying on the table right next to us like a security blanket. I know I do more often than I’d like.”

Indeed, we don’t walk down the street reading a book or watching TV. These technologies can be consuming, but the nature of social media – portable, brief, deeply social – creates a completely different set of temptations and rewards. Textbook theories of behavioral learning and reinforcement tell us that the way rewards are integrated into social media is a recipe for keeping us roped in. For example, if your goal is to,  say, make a rat in a cage press a bar as frequently as possible you should do the following: every once in a while, in a completely unpredictable way, give a reward when the bar is pushed. In contrast, if you give rewards every time they push the bar, they’ll become sated and push less. If you reward in a predictable way, they’ll press the bar just enough to get the reward and no more – because they know how many times they need to press the bar before the reward comes.

Now think about how we use our devices. We check our devices frequently (analogous to pressing the bar) because we’re never sure when an important message, really good piece of news or fascinating factoid will pop up (analogous to the unpredictable reward). So, we find ourselves with device in hand “pressing the bar” over and over again, all day long. The whole economy of social media (i.e., the way the creators of these platforms make their money) is hugely dependent on this very fact.

Now I have to stop and give a MAJOR caveat: This idea may be compelling, sounds like it could be right, but, from my reading of the literature, there is very little direct evidence that this is the case. All we know is that neurologically, aspects of social media and internet use are rewarding, calming, and pleasurable. It’s a far cry from “highjacking our brain,” a phrase I used in the debate for the sake of argument and hyperbole. At the same time, a growing number of people think this is a viable hypothesis, and one that we must put to the test.

By the end of the debate, I think we were all in agreement that when forced to pick a side, we could argue it. But really, we all felt the same thing: Whether social media are anti-social simply depends. It depends on who is using it, how they are using it, and why they are using it. And we just don’t have the scientific knowledge yet to understand these who’s, how’s, and whys.

I concluded my opening statement in the debate by saying, “Until we as a society spend the time, energy and resources to scientifically test how we are changed [by social media], we should proceed with caution and with the possibility in mind that social media could make us more anti-social.”

But BJ Mendelson may have summed it up best when he made a good old-fashioned fan boy reference: with great power comes great responsibility. We need to take the responsibility to look at, question, and try to understand the role of social media in our lives and in society.

The Gamification of Learning

A recent Pew Report polled internet experts and users about the “gamification” of our daily lives, particularly in our networked communications. They write:

The word “gamification” has emerged in recent years as a way to describe interactive online design that plays on people’s competitive instincts and often incorporates the use of rewards to drive action – these include virtual rewards such as points, payments, badges, discounts, and “free” gifts; and status indicators such as friend counts, retweets, leader boards, achievement data, progress bars, and the ability to “level up.”

According to the survey, most believe that the effects of this gamification will be mostly positive, aiding education, health, business, and training. But some fear the potential for “insidious, invisible behavioral manipulation.“

Don’t pooh-pooh the behavioral manipulation point. Do you really want to have your on-line behavior shaped like one of Skinner’s rats by some faceless conglomerate? But that’s actually not what got me going. What got me wondering about where this is all going is that it seems undeniable that gamification will shape how we learn, in particular how kids learn.

Elements that make up this gamification – rewards, competition, status, friend counts – are particularly powerful incentives. Neuroscience had repeatedly documented that these incentives rapidly and intensely “highjack” the reward centers of our brain. So it begins to feel as if we’re addicted to getting that next retweet, higher friend counts, higher scores on fruit ninja, etc.,…. Even the sound that our device makes when a message pops up gives us a rush, makes us tingle with anticipation. We eagerly wait for our next “hit” and are motivated to make that happen.

This gamification could have a powerful impact on how we go about learning. Psychological researchers distinguish between a fixed and a growth mindset – that is, peoples’ beliefs – about intelligence and learning. When people have a fixed mindset, intelligence is viewed as a hard-wired, permanent trait. If intelligence is a fixed trait, then we shouldn’t have to work very hard to do well, and rewards should come easily. In contrast, in a growth mindset, intelligence is viewed as something that can grow and develop through hard work. In this way, a growth mindset promotes learning because mastering a new skill or learning something new is enjoyable for its own sake and is part of the process of intellectual growth. Intelligence is not fixed because it is shaped by hard work and effort. For a nice summary of these distinctions, see a recent post on a wonderful blog called Raising Smarter Kids.

This is where gamification comes in. If children are inundated with incentives and rewards for even the simplest activity or learning goal, motivation for learning becomes increasingly focused on the potential for reward, rather than the process and joy of learning. In addition, when you’re doing things mainly for the reward, the motivation for hard work will peter out after a while. You just move on to the next, perhaps easier way of getting rewards rather than digging in and trying to master something. It also becomes more difficult to appreciate the value of setbacks – not getting a reward – as an opportunity to improve. In these subtle ways, gamification may undermine a child’s ability to develop a growth mindset. Instead, we might have a generation of children who are implicitly taught that everything we do should be immediately rewarded, and that getting external things, rather than the joy of learning, is why we do what we do.

Promoting a growth mindset is not only important for helping our children learn, but for helping them face frustrations and obstacles. Dona Matthews and Joanne Foster, in Raising Smarter Kids, highlight several rules to promote a growth mindset:

1. Learn at all times. This means think deeply and pay attention. When we use technology and social media, we can sometimes err on the side of doing things very quickly and superficially. So, this rule is important to emphasize with children today more than ever. We also have to remind our children (and ourselves) that it’s ok to make mistakes, even if we don’t get rewarded for our efforts.

2. Work hard. This is a skill that of course can be promoted by the presence of incentives – kids will work for hours at a game if they can beat their highest score. But what happens after they get the reward? Are they committed to continue learning? Will they continue struggling and practicing? Sustained hard work is an opportunity for personal growth that external motivation, like that from rewards, may not be able to sustain. Here, the enjoyment of learning and gaining mastery may be the most powerful motivator when it comes to helping children become dedicated learners for the long haul.

3. Confront deficiencies and setbacks. This is about persisting in the face of failure. The increasing role of gamification could both help and hinder this. Gamification will help in the sense that with so many rewards and game dynamics, opportunities for failure are around every corner and children will need to learn to persist. At the same time, what guarantees that a child will persist to obtain these rewards? Rewards are not equally motivating for all individuals. Will those not interested in rewards and games just be left feeling bored, and take part in fewer opportunities for learning?

I’m not saying that we should avoid all rewards – that would too extreme and impossible to boot. But we must maintain our awareness of how, with increasing gamification, the simplest act of using technology, logging onto our favorite website, or using social media might be subtly changing our motivation to learn.

Emotional Attunement: Good Food for Babies’ Brains

Dona Matthews, Ph.D., leading expert on gifted development and education, offers us a fascinating and timely perspective on the deep connections between parents and children – even on the neurobiological level – and the potential dangers of replacing these connections with “electronic engagement-replacements.”

Emotional Attunement: Good Food for Babies’ Brains

Mama’s Always on Stage: Social Media and the Psychological Spotlight

 

In addition to being a shower blogger (see post from two weeks ago), I am also an exerblogger – I talk through blog ideas when I exercise with my trainer Blair. Mostly it’s to take my mind off the unpleasant task of exercising, but really it’s because I have a captive audience – Blair – who is my 20-something sounding board. Blair is not a huge social media user, but like many of his generation, it’s just part and parcel of his social life and the way he thinks about the world. The topic last week was the psychological spotlight.

The notion is that when we use social media, the things we do and say, the way we look, and the things we find interesting seem to have a heightened importance and to be under scrutiny. That is, we know that our lives can be transmitted (by us or others) at any time to the social network, to be seen, heard, and evaluated. So, psychologically, we’re always on stage, in the spotlight. And if we’re always on stage, then maybe, on some level, we are acting and not being fully authentic. Using social media can sometimes feel like being a celebrity walking down the street who knows that the paparazzi are always waiting around the corner.

And this is what is new about social media compared to previous ways of connecting with others – we can share just about anything, via a wide range of media, extremely easily.  We can be seen and heard whenever we want.   And, in turn, we can be nosy parkers and learn a lot about others whenever we want. Decades ago, in her collection of essays, On Photography, Susan Sontag argued that photography creates in people a “chronic voyeuristic relation” to the world around them. But Ms. Sontag did not imagine the level to which social media could take both our voyeuristic and exhibitionistic impulses.

My 3-year-old already gets this, although he doesn’t yet use social media. For him, the impulse to document and to be seen is fully entrenched – “Mama, take a video,” he says, every time he is doing something “cool.” This could be dancing, building blocks, making a funny face, kissing his sister, anything. And every video on demand (that is, he demands the video) ends with my son walking towards me and the device I’m holding to video him saying, “Can I see it? Can I see it?”

And this is what gets me wondering. Am I raising my son to be more self-conscious, more of an exhibitionist, and less authentic about what he says and does, because he knows he will be documented? Because he feels that he is on stage? Does he think he’s special just because he’s being recorded? Maybe not – all kids like to be seen, and among other things, it’s super cute and fun. But the ease of documentation and of sharing with others has taken this natural impulse to a whole new level.

This issue is similar to the debate about self-publishing discussed in a New York Times article over the weekend. The question raised was this:  when parents pay to make their children “published authors,” are they giving children a false sense of self-esteem to the point of self-aggrandizement? Are we ironically, not preparing them for the rigors and tough knocks and rejections of the real world by making everything too easy?  The self-esteem issue here is central because these published child authors feel famous, feel seen because their books are read. They are on stage.

I think there are no clear answers to these issues. I do, however, think that most of us would agree that being on stage is a deeply rooted impulse in our culture today – from reality television to You Tube to Facebook, this has been going on for a long time. Think back to America’s Funniest Home Videos (wait, is that still on?).  I’m not saying this impulse is new, or necessarily bad, but the more central the psychological spotlight becomes to how we all operate, the more we need to take time to understand what it means.

Parenting and Multi-Tasking in the Digital Age

As a psychologist and mom of two young children, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be a parent in the digital age. A lot of people have already talked about how we feel tethered to our digital devices, and need to multi-task in order to juggle the constant demands on our attention. We’re no longer on the information superhighway – we’re in the Cloud. Which is exactly how I feel a lot of the time – like my head is in a cloud – unless I very purposefully step back and focus on being in the present with my family and friends.

But there are several issues from the standpoint of developmental psychology that I think aren’t discussed enough. I’ll focus on just two, here. The first issue is a child’s need to be genuinely seen and heard – or mirrored – by parents. The second is that we are teaching our children profound lessons about how to relate to other human beings when we multi-task with our devices instead of being present with them in the moment.

Mirroring. Parenting wisdom a few generations ago asserted that children should be seen but not heard. This is really incorrect in several ways. There is a classic concept in child psychology (originated by Heinz Kohut) called mirroring. Mirroring refers to the healthy process by which parents mirror or reflect back to children what they are saying, feeling, experiencing, wondering. Parents also look at children with a “sparkle” in their eye – that look of pride, warmth, and love that tells children they are appreciated and esteemed. Through this mirroring, children learn to understand their own behaviors, thoughts and emotions. They also learn self-regard and self-appreciation. Simply put, children learn to see themselves through our eyes.

Without this mirroring, many child developmentalists believe that children will not feel fully valued as human beings and will not as quickly and deeply learn to understand how to interpret their experiences and feelings. Imagine a world in which no one really looks at you or hears what you have to say – maybe some of us can. But then imagine you’re a child, and not really able to make sense of the world that goes on around you and the complex feelings and experiences you have. How do you give all these things a name? Mirroring would help you interpret your world and yourself.

Multi-tasking on our devices all the time is a sure-fire way to interfere with our ability look our children in the eye, hear what they have to say, sensitively pick up on their feelings, and transmit that sparkle in the eye. The multitasking mode is the opposite of mirroring and of being present.

The lessons that multi-tasking teach our children. This is a complex issue because I DO NOT think that doing some multi-tasking around children will “damage” them. That is ridiculous. From the very beginning of our evolutionary history, moms and dads were doing other things while spending time with the kids. In many cultures today, children are expected to join in with whatever adults are doing, and spend lots of time amusing themselves and playing independently –more perhaps than is expected in the U.S. on average. These sorts of cultural/value/belief differences about how to raise kids are totally ok differences. That is, no child developmentalist will tell you that we should be worried about this.

However, in this particular culture within which I live, many of us raise our children to be individualistic, with beliefs and desires that even from the earliest childhood are prioritized. The flip side of this is that while we are respecting them as individuals, we also should have the goal (I believe) of teaching them to respect and cherish others as individuals. When we multi-task on our devices every time we spend time with our children, I think we are sending at least three messages that in some ways are contradictory to this goal:

1. We don’t need to fully pay attention to other people, or be fully present.

2. When the multi-tasking is about work – there is no boundary between work and personal.

3. Even when we’re with others, it’s normal to be tethered to a device.

So, the advice I give myself goes something like this – “Alright, sometimes I’ll multi-task. I’m busy and have things I just have to do. At the same time, I will keep it to a minimum when I’m with my children and identify times that are sacred, when the devices go off (e.g., bedtime, breakfast, dinner, afternoon play time, etc,…) and stick to this.

This is my best guess at how to handle it. But only time will tell – will the Millennials (and generations beyond) lose some of what we hope all children will learn? – To deeply value others and the time we spend together, and feel deeply valued in return.