Screenwiser: An Updated Perspective on Tech Use

Do you worry that your students are detached from friends and family, distracted by, or addicted to their digital devices?

Last February, ParentWiser invited Devorah Heitner, Ph.D., to share some strategies with parents on how to mentor, instead of monitor, kids with technology use. Her suggestions included social media, texting, and gaming. She also gave direction on how to keep up with the news without getting overwhelmed.

At the beginning of the lecture, Heitner mentioned that long before this pandemic, there was negativity in the general culture around parenting and screens. Many people felt that screens and technology are bad for kids. However, if people know how to balance the real challenges of technology, it can be positive. Ideally, we want to be running our technology devices instead of letting them run us.

There are four areas that parents can focus on:

1. Relationships

Kids need parents’ guidance and help to learn to navigate their relationships. It is important for parents to recognize their kids’ world is new and different. But parents should also recognize that they bring a lot of insight to their kids’ lives; adults do have experiences that are very relevant to kids. Remember, do not let kids undercut your authority as a parent, and do not doubt the ability to be a supportive parent. The core message is for parents to mentor kids more than monitor them. Mentoring is about teaching kids to do the right thing, helping them repair mistakes, and sharing your own experiences. For example, if parents need to take away their kids’ devices at some point, kids need to earn them back by doing the right thing. Also, parents can share experiences like the feeling of receiving an upsetting text message that turned out to be a misunderstanding when it is explained in-person or face-toface, or when a social media post comment caused a challenge or a problem. The goal is that our teens or tweens can self-regulate. Parents want to support their kids, which may include some external regulations and rules, but we want to help them learn how to self-regulate. For little kids, parents should observe how kids behave with the technology device, when they play a game or watch a show. For older kids, observe how they deal with social media and if they overreact or if it is causing problems, drama, etc. Observing what happens can help you find out if your kids are good at selfregulating and what help they might need to build healthier relationships.

2. Reputation

Our kids are growing up with a digital footprint. When parents share their kids’ pictures online, pay attention to how the kid feels about it. Some may be upset, and others may not. Parents need to rethink the practice of publicly posting about their kids and make sure to have a policy of receiving consent before posting. When their kids start to have a phone themselves, this can be especially important. Set a boundary to teach them something you want them to know before they have a phone themselves. Teaching them the power to say no is important because consent in the digital world is crucial.

3. Self-esteem

Teach them to stay away from chasing metrics in the digital world. Kids crave feedback. Parents need to make sure that kids can figure out who they are without feeling too much pressure when they are sharing in digital spaces. It is typical for tweens and teens to need the feedback and be interested in it. Still, parents want to make sure that they have some checks and balances and other ways to get the feedback as well.

4. Time management

It is so easy to lose time because there are so many things we can do with the technology we have. Parents need to think about what kids are experiencing with the struggle to manage and balance their time. We need to teach our kids to accept that it is not going to be perfect. There are going to be times when they do not have good time management, but they can learn from those experiences and move forward. In the second half of the lecture, Heitner talked about a few of the common problems that parents are having with their kids and technology:

GAMING

Currently, kids are starting to play video games young. One thing parents want to make sure to do is check if their kids are gaming on a public server. This can give parents an idea if their kids are interacting with strangers. If so, parents want to know how that is going and if their kid is ready for that kind of interaction. For younger kids, parents can create servers where they can play just with their friends; they can invite people they know into these servers. Sometimes, the public library or even a school Minecraft club is safer than a public server. Frequently check in with the kids about if they have ever run into someone in a game who is being hateful or using bad words or if they know someone who easily gets too mad when gaming. If the child gets upset during gaming, suggest another activity like going outside or just remind them that it is just a game.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Most of the current social media like Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube use algorithms to attempt to guess what people might like to see. Parents might be concerned about some inappropriate content popping up in their kids' feed lists. The challenge is that because parents and their kids have different interests, the feed list in these apps might look very different. But the reality is that there will be harmful content in any app where somebody puts the content in and other people can search for it. There are no absolutely good or bad apps. To help build a better youth culture, parents can ask questions to learn about what their kids are thinking from these apps or spaces, hang out with their kids, and listen in on them and their friends.

TEXTING

This is the one thing that kids need to learn because in our current world, texting is important for them to connect with other kids and be social. One thing parents want to make sure about is that their kids are not texting somebody again and again if that person is not available to respond. Kids might do this because they are used to getting quick responses and instantaneous connections. It is very disconcerting for them when they do not get a response right away. Parents might teach kids to either use a voice phone call or leave a message (they might need parents’ help to set up and use voicemail) and know how to close out a conversation while texting their friends. Kids also need to learn that because of the lack of tone and facial expression of text messages, a conflict or misunderstanding can happen very easily with texting. They need to learn how to repair the relationships in person and work out any problems. If any text messages made them upset, they might take a break or take a breath and think about reaching out to talk in person and repair the relationship privately.

At the end of her lecture, Heitner emphasized the importance of sleep. Kids can easily skip sleeping while snuggling in bed with these technological devices. Since social media feeds or games do not have any endpoints, parents should talk with their kids about their choices for digital activities before bedtime. Parents should model these choices at bedtime at the same time.

To check Devorah Heitner, Ph.D.’s full-length lecture or know more about how to reach her, please visit: https://www. parentwiser.org/.

Devorah Heitner is the author of Screenwise: Helping Kids Thrive (and Survive) in Their Digital World and the founder of Raising Digital Natives, a resource for schools and organizations wishing to cultivate a culture of responsible digital citizenship. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Real Simple, and Time magazine.