alt Hacker NewsI find these studies specifically frustrating because they don't answer the most interesting question - is it damaging if your caregiver uses phone a lot but remains responsive.
This study specifically excludes it, and fair enough when being honest about the statistical inference and not overreaching, but that is the question I find most interesting as someone who uses my phone to get away from my desk but keep work going so I can spend time with my kids while doing my job.
One outcome would be this is damaging and worse than just not spending time until after work, the other result would say this is a beneficial arrangement.
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We focus too much on details and not the overall picture.
If you're a parent, one factor matters more than any other: the parents' emotional health determines the children's emotional health. Whether the parents have secure attachment, any intimacy/trust issues, high or low self-esteem, anxious or not, self-aware, how repressed they are, how comfortable with their own and others' emotions...
If a parent is uncomfortable with their thoughts/emotions and compensates with digital distractions, the issue isn't the phone. The media obsesses too much over symptoms and not causes.
If you use the phone a lot, you are not generating any initiative on your own and are not reponsive to small initiations you dont notice. You are responsive to when kid explicitely comes to you.
Or otherwise said, if you are on the phone a lot, you are creating a barrier to interaction and people (both kids and adults) will eventually end up tired of trying and having less reciprocation.
If you are not physically there, it is actually less frustrating to others then if you create a barrier while being there.
How do your kids feel abot it or have they expressed any frustration with your divided attention?
For a lot of parents, the phone may actually be what lets them be physically around their kids more
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> is it damaging if your caregiver uses phone a lot but remains responsive.
> but that is the question I find most interesting as someone who uses my phone to get away from my desk but keep work going so I can spend time with my kids while doing my job.
This is probably more relevant to people who are using their phones for passive entertainment than work. The difference is that your kids are more engaging than your work, so your attention will naturally be pulled toward your kids, whereas parents who are scrolling social media or playing games are going to be more drawn to their phones and are going to have punctuated and shallow interactions with their kids.
Personally, I don't think I've ever observed someone who was actively engaged with their phone who was also fully engaged with the people around them.