In the novel “Sweet Tomorrow” (1991), author Russell Banks implicitly asks: what happened to the children? The same question echoes in the thriller “Weapons” by Zach Cregger, released in theaters last year: here 17 very young people from a small town suddenly vanish. From fantasy to reality, where more and more mothers and fathers “disappear”, delegating their role to digital devices. Unaware of the emotional fractures that, over time, technologies can create between them and their children.
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For example, if a mother who is playing with her baby who is just a few months old is distracted by her smartphone, this could cause “behavioural problems” for the little one. The warning comes from a team of researchers from the Department of Nervous System and Behavioral Sciences of the University of Pavia and the Mondino Foundation, who conducted a study, visible on Biological Psychologyrelating to the effect of the use of devices on the first, delicate interactions between mother and child.
What “happened” to the parents? What are the effects of new technologies on mums and dads? How has their role changed in the digital age? Does the possibility of monitoring your children 24 hours a day make them more anxious or calm? The Vermilion asked Professor Stefano Coquinati, pedagogist and educational consultant, who had already spoken on the topic, much debated at school, of electronic register as a “trap” for both students and families.
Temporary reassurances
There is no doubt: i electronic devices they play on the growing anxiety of parents. “We live in an information ecosystem that amplifies the alert: bad news circulates faster, stays longer and gives us the impression that danger is everywhere. When added to this is educational loneliness, i.e. more isolated families or fragile support networks, the outcome is an emotional climate of hypervigilance: the constant feeling that something is about to happen and that, if it does, it will be our fault for not having foreseen it.”
In this context, how can we “define” control devices such as the electronic register? Coquinati replies like this: “Let’s start by saying that they are not “neutral” devices. Rather, they intercept a real need, such as that of feeling competent, protecting, preventing, and transforming it into a need for control. This is the crucial pedagogical point: many technologies do not really reduce the risk, rather they reduce anguish for a few minutes.”
So, do these digital tools only produce temporary reassurance? “Certainly, and they become a sort of emotional prosthesis: they don’t help the parent to build trust but they get him used to calming down only if aapp confirms that, somehow, everything is okay. It’s the idea of having control of the situation. And when the reassurance passes, the bar often rises: more notifications, more data, more control”, adds Coquinati.
Avoid any conflict
Where possible, the hyper-connected parent tends to avoid any possible conflict within the family unit. “It’s like this. Part of the success of new technologies lies precisely in their promise parenting “frictionless”. In real relationships there is effort: comparison, judgement, conflict, ambivalence, sometimes even intrusiveness”, continues the expert. He continues: “Technology sells a simpler alternative: an immediate response, a metric, a graph, a procedure. It is not necessary to negotiate with anyone, but to trust.”
Thus, more and more often, new technologies tend to replace, or at least replace, human relationships. “Be careful, though: you don’t always look for “community” online in the fullest sense of the term; more often you look for similarity, recognition, emotional alliance and sometimes visibility. It’s a useful but fragile sociality: it consoles you, it doesn’t always support you.”
According to Coquinati, the economic-cultural component must then be evaluated. “Parents are a perfect target because care is a huge market. Let’s think, for example, of how reassuring it is not to give money to children, instead providing them with credit cards so that we can control them. Furthermore, the card does not have a theft risk like cash. But if kids don’t use money, they will never learn to value it.”
The power of data
In conclusion, the risk does not lie in the use of digital tools per se, but in shifting the center of gravity of the relationship there. In the book “Second Life” by Amanda Hess, at a certain point the author realizes that the relationship with the child had been replaced, in some way, by the relationship with the data. “It is a very powerful passage that describes an educational transformation: care is no longer just presence, but continuous verification”, specifies the expert.
But can data in the digital age be useful? “As an pedagogist I say yes, but they remain tools and do not become a substitute for the relationship. Because data does not tell everything: they select, simplify, interpret. And when we convince ourselves that “if it is not measured it is not true”, we lose fundamental educational skills: qualitative observation, listening, tolerance of uncertainty, progressive trust”. In other words, concludes Coquinati, “we lose the relationship, which is always more complex than a graph, but it is also what really makes both children and parents grow”.