Smartphone addiction victimizes young and old, and hurts family relationships
Monday Vibes
The author is an editor with China Daily Hong Kong.
Talking to someone who is so engrossed in his or her mobile phone that he or she doesn’t spare even a second to look at you or just makes an offhand remark is frustrating and irritating. It is a scenario taken for granted but can potentially make people feel alienated.
Mobile devices have transformed the way we communicate, making chats and engagement with other people more instant and responsive. The emergence of a myriad of social media platforms enables us to reconnect with friends who have lost touch for a while or maintain a close bond with family members a considerable distance away. Group chat on a social network brings more fun and improves work efficiency when it is used in the workplace; the emoticons come in handy when we want to stop a conversation or field an unwanted question, sparing us the embarrassment. Mobile phones serve as a useful tool when we are waiting in a long queue and an effective ice breaker when there’s a lull in the conversation.
Despite the many merits the device promises, it can put our family relationships at risk if we spend excessive time using it, by which I mean the time that should be spent with loved ones — such as parents and children.
There are many times when I protested in front of my 60-something phubbing parents: “Put away your phones. Did you hear me? Can we talk for a while?” It’s disappointing to see the first thing they do after returning home or getting up the next morning is to check Moments on their WeChat, while I was hoping for a casual family talk. It’s sad to spot family members sitting at the same table in a restaurant ignoring each other while chatting with someone at the other end of the screen of an electronic device, or scrolling down the screen aimlessly just to kill time until their food arrives. It is pathetic to see everyone in the family ignoring their loved ones in favor of a lifeless digital device. It’s also baffling to find elderly parents like mine becoming slaves to the device — they care how many thumb-ups they get for their feeds as much as young digital consumers. This is a very real observation and is backed up by recent studies. The 2018 WeChat Data Report released by Tencent in January revealed that the number of active WeChat users aged 55 and above had reached 63 million, accounting for 6 percent of its users. The research showed that this demographic enjoyed using WeChat’s News Feed — like Moments feature and the thumbs up meme. Moreover, this elderly group said they enjoyed video chats with their children after dinner.
Quality time is by no means about being physically present with family members. Truly “quality” quality time requires everyone to invest their full attention, concentration and enthusiasm into a family conversation or communal activities. There’s no other kind of conversation easier to conduct than a family talk, in my opinion. This is because a family chat does not have to be on a specific topic or be fun-filled like with our friends. A face-to-face conversation between family members can be simply about briefing each other on something special we do, sharing interesting things we see and hear throughout the day, problems that we come across with friends or colleagues, or decisions that we struggle to make. The point is to get every member of the family involved — laugh at some funny things and show concern about more serious matters.
Family interaction is an important and organic channel for young parents to navigate their children through difficulties and equip them with problemsolving skills. Elderly parents are keen to be asked advice and opinions on their adult offspring’s problems — even though their suggestions may not be completely adopted. Real-time communication within a family creates empathy, synergy, respect, mutual appreciation and understanding.
It is true that mobile devices reshape our intimate relationships, but unnecessarily in a bad way — interfering with our real-time conversations. We can instead use them to our advantage. If we can give ourselves a “digital detox” once a week or an hour in the evening each day, and spend the no-screen time chatting with the loved ones who we live with, the rewarding effects on relationships will probably be more profound and lasting than the instant reward brought about by counting the number of thumb-ups under our status updates on WeChat.