Technology UseNow Is the Right Time!
As a parent or someone in a parenting role, you play a crucial role in your teen’s success. There are intentional ways to grow a healthy parent-teen relationship and ensure they develop a healthy relationship with technology.
Technology use has become essential to your teen’s life and learning in school. It has the potential to play a role in:
● social and emotional development[1]
● language development
● connection to friends, family, and others
● academic learning
● empathy and understanding of others
● imagination
● ability to choose healthy behaviors (preventing high-risk behaviors and unhealthy choices)
Teens ages 15-19 range from the middle of adolescence to their emerging adult years beginning at ages 18-19, where they will cultivate their independent identity. Additionally, they’ll experiment with and learn social skills through forging and prioritizing friendships and peer opinions. They will create more independent relationships with teachers, coaches, and you while demonstrating competence or mastery in extracurricular activities like sports, music, or other areas.
Yet, technology can pose challenges. Nationally, the majority of parents say that parenting is harder than it was twenty years ago, and most point to technology as the primary reason.^1 Let’s take a deeper look at the screen time habits of this age group: ^2
- 15-18-year-olds are on screens an average of 8-9 hours per day, with boys an average of one hour longer than girls. Most of this screen time is spent watching online videos.
- The second most utilized technology is video gaming, with 39% of teens reporting they enjoy gaming “a lot” and an average usage of nearly two hours daily.
Screen time can take away time from family being together and growing intimate connections. Indeed, addiction can become a real threat as those jolts of happy hormones (dopamine) are fueled; infinite scrolling is the norm on social media, and games are programmed to keep them perpetually engaged. Daily device use can take time away from other critical pursuits for their physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development, such as reading, playing outdoors, unstructured creative time, friend time, homework, and more. The kinds of content that a teen can view or stumble into online can range from mildly irritating to disturbing and dangerous, whether it involves repeated consumer messages, cartoon violence, graphic violence, fake news, or even pornography. Additionally, teens can encounter social aggression and bullying online and through social media, which can hurt uniquely since they can be more publicly exposed than most in-person incidents.
We know that growing a healthy relationship with technology requires regular conversations and a commitment from the whole family to become intentional about their use of technology, including appropriate boundaries and safety practices. Approach this topic with empathy and recognize that the devices and apps are designed to make the user stay engaged and want more. Acknowledge with your teen that adults have difficulty setting boundaries with technology use. While it may take more time, planning, and encouragement with your teen to develop a healthy relationship with technology, its role can become a joyful experience, enrich your family life, and promote valuable skills for school and life success. It can also prepare your teen for a lifetime of wise habits related to technology tools. The steps below include specific, practical strategies and effective conversation starters to support families.
Why Examine Technology Use?
Becoming intentional about your teen’s daily technology use can influence how they develop a healthy relationship with technology and its role in their life. Looking for ways to experience and learn together about how to use devices wisely contributes to their development.
Today, in the short term, creating a healthy relationship with technology can create
● greater opportunities for connection and enjoyment
● opportunity for dialogue and reflection
● a direct way to influence your teen’s positive development
Tomorrow, in the long term, a healthy relationship with technology helps your teen grow skills in
● critically reviewing content and making responsible decisions
● self-management and self-discipline
● planning and time management
● collaboration and cooperative goal-setting
● create positive device habits that contribute directly to school and life success
Five Steps for Examining Technology Use
This five-step process helps your family establish a routine for daily technology use. It also builds essential skills in your teen. The same process can also address other parenting issues (learn more about the process[2] ).
Tip: These steps are best done when you and your teen are not tired or in a rush. Tip: Intentional communication[3] and a healthy parenting relationship[4] support these steps.Step 1. Get Your Teen Thinking by Getting Their
InputBy asking open-ended questions, you can get your teen thinking about their relationship with technology - how they use devices, when, where, and for what purpose. Seeking their input and offering authentic, limited choices in designing a plan to establish daily device use and management routine provides multiple benefits.
In gaining input, your teen
● has the opportunity to think through how and when they use technology and problem-solve any challenges they may encounter ahead of time
● cultivates critical habits of asking questions about their media use that will follow them into their independent emerging adult lives
● has a more significant stake in anything they’ve designed themselves (and with that sense of ownership comes a greater responsibility for respecting boundaries set)
● will have more motivation to work together and cooperate because of their sense of ownership
● will be working with you on making informed decisions (understanding the reasons behind those decisions) about a critical aspect of their lives at home and school
Actions
Jotting down notes together on your teen’s responses to the following questions will help you when you develop rules or routines for device use.
● What are your hopes and goals for your time after school, weekends, or summer days?
● Do you get to do everything you want to do in your free time – or connect with the people you want to communicate with (friends, family), or are there things you miss out on?
● What roles do you want your devices to play in your life? (i.e., learning, entertainment, connection with friends, resume building)?
● Do you tend to want screen time when you experience a particular emotion (e.g., sadness, frustration, anger)?
● What other things would you like to try to calm down and feel better when you have this feeling? Can we talk about it, go outside, listen to music, or ride bikes?
Allow your teen some choices when establishing a device routine. Allowing choices increases their sense of control and motivation to respect the boundaries around device use. Teens can have complex schedules as they attempt to juggle sports practice and games, academic assignments - some may require collaboration with classmates, some may have part-time jobs, mealtime, family time, household care, and hygiene. Teens, in particular, are growing the higher-order thinking skills of planning and organization. You may help them by asking:
○ “What does your schedule look like each day after school?
○ What do you have to fit in? (like homework, meals)
○ What would you like to fit in? (like time with friends)
○ Then, considering all of the activities, when is the best time to use devices? And when is the best time to put them on their chargers and power them down?
Step 2.
Teach New Skills
As a parent or someone in a parenting role, learning about what developmental milestones[5] your teen is working on can help you know which aspects might be more difficult for them regarding technology use.
● Fifteen-year-olds may be much more comfortable in who they are than they were in previous years and may even appear, at times, overly confident or even invincible. It’s typical for this age group to become argumentative and, at times, rebellious, asserting their sense of independence, but getting along with parents may be more frequent. This age group is more commonly interested in exploring romantic relationships. Many teens prefer to communicate with their friends through text and social media. They may also begin learning to drive at this age.^3
● Sixteen-year-olds continue to gain more competence and independence. They are old enough to get a driver’s license. Many will develop romantic interests. Physically, their bodies will continue to grow but resemble adult height and features. Many feel a sense of invincibility and may not yet be skilled at anticipating the consequences of risky behavior or feeling like those consequences could never happen to them. They are becoming more future-oriented as they consider life after high school. Though relationships at this age have always been complicated, now, in the digital age, teens must navigate online risks, social aggression, and other temptations.
● Seventeen-year-olds have developed organizational skills and may be able to manage a part-time job, school work responsibilities, and extracurricular activities. However, they are still learning higher-order self-regulation or impulse-control skills. Screens can continue to pose a challenge as teens seriously consider their future after high school and attempt to persist toward their goals. Though their identity will feel more secure, anticipation of their future may provide stress from the uncertainties, and they’ll need your support.
● Eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds are on the threshold of change and entering their emerging adult lives. Whether ending high school and beginning higher education, employment, military service, or volunteer service, they will undergo significant life transitions from being dependent on you to taking on more independence. At times, they may seem fully capable, competent, and confident, and at other times, scared and unprepared. Your support through these changes is critical.
Trap: Online time should be different from reading time since this is a necessary time to cultivate positive reading habits and skills. Only 34% of teens say they read daily.^3 Research shows that many boys tend to stop reading for pleasure by their own choice around nine or ten.^5 Experts suspect this is because boys tend toward nonfiction topics like books about the natural world or how-to topics. They also gravitate toward graphic novels or comics. Experts suspect parents can voice their disapproval of these reading choices and inadvertently discourage reading. Be sure you leave judgment of book choices behind and only encourage their reading. Nonfiction and graphic novels are excellent choices if they interest your young reader. If it’s safe content for them, offer your support and interest. Also, maintaining some limits on screen time allows for reading time.Trap: Online time should also not replace your teen’s commitments and attention to their well-being. After all, these habits will follow them when they have moved on from your watchful eye. As they grow older, they’ll need to juggle more responsibilities. Also, exposure to nature, exercise, and social hang-out time with friends are all key factors in their healthy development.Actions
Model healthy technology habits.
● Because technology plays a significant role in our family's life, modeling how we use technology teaches our teens more than our words ever could. How are you disciplined about technology? Do you have rules for putting the laptop down and storing work away at the end of the day? Do you have times when you turn off or leave behind your phone? Do you charge at night in another room? Share those practices with your teen so that they understand that it’s not only children who have to manage devices and cultivate healthy technology habits.
● Notice how you cope with challenges and uncomfortable feelings. Do you tend to use technology as an “escape”? Talk with your teen about how you are feeling and what you will do to calm down rather than tune out.
Research content together before viewing.
● Our teens need to learn to become their very own media analysts. Download an app or visit a media review site together. We recommend Common Sense Media because it offers reviews based on a teen’s age (and readiness). Get into a habit of reading together about new video games, television programs, movies, and applications before selecting them to view. If they are not developmentally appropriate, move on to something that is.
● Research any topic you are curious about on the internet together and review the keywords to use and the quality of the sites that come up in your search. Discuss the quality and reliability of the site. For example, does the site provide opinion-based information or facts and research-based information?
● Discuss the roles of technology in your home. Share the facts! Here are some key facts gathered from Confident Parents, Confident Kids:
1. Too much screen time changes the structure and functioning of the brain. According to brain plasticity research, whatever stimuli are received over time directly affects the development and hard wiring of the brain. If teens are used to the stimulus of changing images every 5-6 seconds, then their brain needs that stimulus to help them focus their attention.^5
2. Too much screen time can also result in obesity (unconscious eating), de-sensitivity to violent images, greater challenges with learning and academic achievement, and less nourishing (REM) sleep.^6
3. Hormone levels change. Dopamine, a pleasure hormone, is released while watching screens, which makes the experience addictive. It’s human nature to desire that pleasure response and return to it repeatedly. Melatonin is reduced, affecting the ability to regulate sleep, the strength of the immune system, and the onset of puberty.^6
4. Extended screen viewing impacts the teen’s developing brain. Heavy viewing has been shown to retard the myelination process in the early brain, particularly from birth to age four. Myelination is the process in which nerve cells in the brain build up a fatty protein sheath that improves conductivity, enhancing the flow of information from one cell to another. If this process is retarded, there’s a loss in the ability to use the imagination and think creatively.^7
5. Mental fatigue shows reduced effectiveness and increased distraction and irritability. No screen time can restore cognitive fatigue. Researchers have found that being in nature is the best way to regain thinking.^8
Co-create rules and routines to manage device use.
● Gather as a family to discuss the key issue since it impacts everyone in the household. After sharing facts, discuss your family and personal priorities for everyday life. Here are some questions to help you consider your routine and rules:
○ How do we use our time daily when not in school or work? Do we like the way we use our time?
○ What activities are a high priority (meals, homework, exercise, extracurriculars)?
○ Which of those activities require our complete focus?
○ When do we have time to connect as a family?
Consider the following recommendations when creating rules and routines:
● Mealtime can be an important time for families to connect. Consider this an excellent time to put devices away and focus on one another.
● For healthy sleep, all devices should be shut down an hour before bedtime;
● Create a home base in a central living area for charging your devices. For healthy sleep, charge devices overnight somewhere other than a bedroom or place where a teen is sleeping;
● Use your teen’s feelings as a guide. Help raise their self-awareness by asking, “How do you feel?” after a session on a device. If you are more anxious, determine whether it was the content or too much screen time. Make adjustments accordingly.
● Ensure your teen doesn’t spend over one hour on screen time without a break. Healthy eyes need that break, even if brief.
Check out Confident Parents and Kids' printable template to create a family media agreement.
Take on the student role with your teen.
● Create time for your teen to take you on a digital tour of their latest favorites, whether a video game, a new app, or an online...