Do screens unite or separate us? A Spanish study on the impact of the media on family life

Families have become more and more often multi-screen environments, where
at least one TV, smartphones, tablets, computers and video game consoles
“thrive” together. This fact is transforming important aspects of family
life: the screens contribute significantly to facilitating the management
of everyday life, but at the same time they have become a source of
conflict and concern for parents.

These and other interesting aspects were analyzed in a recent Spanish
research conducted in June 2018 on a sample of 1,400 families with children
under the age of 18. The survey was commissioned by Empantallados.com, a
platform for parents created to promote educational accompaniment in the
digital world.

Through an anonymous survey carried out by GAD3, a Spanish pollster, a
photograph was taken of families with small children and their relationship
with “screens”. The data of the study is also enriched with the opinion of
an expert who helps to contextualize the figures and with some advice from parents to parents, to help them better understand
this new family situation. The data, comments, interviews and advice are
put at the service of a reasonable and reasoned educational purpose.

Nowadays, it is immediate to think of a family scene in which each member
is busy with a different screen: while perhaps someone is shopping online,
the child has a remote conversation with his grandmother showing his good
grade in school.

New technologies reduce distances. But what is happening with the
closest ones? Do screens help family management and relationships with
partners or children?

The Spanish research starts with these questions to arrive to a diagnosis
of the current situation and offer a deeper reflection on the subject.

Relationship with technology, parental mediation

The relationship of families with technology and screens sometimes seems
paradoxical. Screens facilitate home management and communication, but they
also have introduced elements of conflict at home and unprecedented
educational challenges for parents.

In the majority of cases, that is 66%, the respondents
found the positive potential of using screens to manage everyday family
life, which does not mean they are not aware of the new forms of conflict
arisen from the very same devices. Two areas are of special concern:
prolonged exposure to screens and inadequate content and images to which
their children may be exposed. The research highlights:

Parents have a new role: mediation between their children and
technology. This accompaniment must be based on trust

. Being close to them in their connections to the Internet, seeing certain
alarm signals or talking often about what they visit on the web, are some
suggestions to turn parents’ fears into action engines.

And so, when the use of screens is excessive, various steps of
“detoxification” could be helpful: leaving the devices away from the dining
room and encouraging dialogue at the table; leaving them outside the
bedroom; avoiding to fall asleep late and with the mobile phone in your
hands; in the car avoiding the Wi-Fi, to take advantage of the trip as a
moment of confrontation and discussion; or leaving the mobile phone
“parked” outside the room when studying in order to avoid distractions…

Once we have set the timetables, how do we protect children within
the digital environment?

Parents are aware that they have assumed an essential role in the
protection of their children, and this also extends to the Internet.
Effective parental mediation helps to educate responsible and correct
digital users.

The approach to the task of parental mediation is
essentially based on three axes of action: control actions
, such as the installation of parental control in the devices; accompanying actions, that is, being close when they surf,
knowing what they consume on the Internet and generating conversations
about it; and, finally, family engagement actions, that
is, creating a digital family culture, with clear limits and rules of use,
that allow to be reviewed when something doesn’t work.

But what is the right age for the first ‘screen’? First the tablet,
or the mobile phone?

The interviewed families think that the average age for a tablet is 10
years; later, at 13, the first smartphone. But the majority received it
between 11 and 12 years old. That is, before the age that the same
respondents consider appropriate. For most parents there are no magic
recipes, since many factors motivate receiving the first screen, perhaps
the most important one is the character and situation of each child.

Apart from the “suitable age issue”, the main concerns of the parents
interviewed are: cyberbullying, the relationships with strangers, access to
inappropriate content, and waste of time and overexposure of their image.
One of the solutions proposed by the expert is complying with certain
rules, almost creating a sort of negotiation with the children on the use
of technological devices. Reaching an agreement can serve to reduce
situations of conflict and, in any case, it helps to encourage dialogue and
sharing. And, as the study points out, there should be a constant and
periodic proposal of so called ‘alternatives’, i.e. a trip to the park, an
excursion in contact with nature, in other words, all those occasions that
allow us not to completely lose contact with the surrounding reality.

Parents and new technologies, models to imitate or examples to
avoid?

Parents, being the model to be imitated by their children, should be the
first ones to practice self-control of the screens at home.

The correct use of technology has become a ‘personal battle’ for parents,
both with reference to digital education and with reference to the proper
use of various devices, especially of the mobile phone. Even for adults,
parents in fact, the use of screens is not only relegated to leisure time,
but has become an essential tool for work and family management which is
difficult to avoid, or to limit the use.

Although more than half of respondents consider making proper use of the
screens, and therefore present themselves as a good reference for children,
3 out of 10 parents admit to make a heavy use of them, even more intense
than that of the children themselves. Only 8% of parents surveyed said they
hardly ever use screens at home. The conclusion is that, through their
behavior, parents offer numerous opportunities to present balanced models
of relationships with technology. If we ask our children to respect certain
rules, maybe we should start with us as parents…

And so among the suggestions proposed, there is good array of sound pieces
of advice: “do not turn back home with your ear stuck to your phone without
even greeting those who are at home”; try also to “create a separation
between work time and family time” – sometimes, a simple gesture, like not
leaving your mobile phone in sight, can contribute to your disconnection;
“set up exclusive moments of attention for your family”: for example, when
you pick your child up at do it without looking at the phone while waiting
him, or enter the house without appliances; “be the first one to free your
meal table from mobile phones and other devices”; “try to ‘forget your
phone’ during family events and excursions”, etc.

A new educational challenge: how to manage new technologies

To the question “how prepared do parents feel to face the challenge of
managing new technologies?” 60% responded that they would like to know more
about their children’s digital education. But there is also a 9% who
recognize that they are overwhelmed by the problem and say they have thrown
in the towel.

The conclusion of the study is that digital education should be a means to
personal development and not a reason to discuss and fight at home. For
this reason, it is necessary to start very early, with clear guidelines
established with common sense and aimed at the growth of children. In this
way technology can be truly experienced as an educational and growth
opportunity for the whole family.