Wired Child Read online

  Advance Praise for Wired Child

  “There is no greater threat to family life than the digital deluge we are facing. There is no better book than this one to guide you through the clever clutter of misinformation the device myth makers would have us believe. We are in the midst of a fifteen year social experiment that no one is controlling… and it’s not going so well. Dr. Freed has crafted something here that is sensible, impeccably researched, fairly presented and most of all a message of hope.”

  —KIM JOHN PAYNE, M.Ed., author of Simplicity Parenting and The Soul of Discipline

  “Before you buy a piece of technology for your child—or think of offering tech rewards to him or her—read this book. This is not a screed against all things tech, but rather a psychological profile of what technology can and cannot accomplish with children, puncturing many popular myths along the way. It also answers the question of why Steve Jobs limited his children’s access to and use of technology.”

  —JIM TRELEASE, author of The Read-Aloud Handbook

  “Every parent needs to read this book. Not only is it a treasure trove of significant research that can spur positive action, it also uncovers the underbelly of our industry-culture that intentionally perpetuates harmful digital myths at the cost of our children’s optimal development. Get it. You might get mad, and that may be a good thing.”

  —GLORIA DEGAETANO, author of Parenting Well in a Media Age, coauthor of Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill

  “As marketers tout screen technology as a solution to myriad childhood ills, parents need honest information about what’s best for children in a digital world. In Wired Child, psychologist Richard Freed combines facts, real-life stories, and tips into a highly readable, timely, and much-needed resource for parents and anyone who cares about children’s health and well-being.”

  —SUSAN LINN, Ed.D., instructor in psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; author of Consuming Kids and The Case for Make Believe

  “An important book! Wired Child is a timely reminder that billion dollar tech myths don’t hold up to scrutiny. Freed’s insights spark a critical conversation on InfoTech myths and how kids can benefit from wise use of technology. His psychotherapist perspective is convincing!”

  —RAFFI CAVOUKIAN, singer, founder of Centre for Child Honouring, author of Lightweb Darkweb

  “Wired Child is a handy, readable, and all-too-timely volume on the myths that have gripped American families about the value of digital tools…. Practices alleged to improve kids’ learning and family relationships actually harm them. Freed exposes the hype and fraud surrounding video games, social media, and other entertainment-based technologies, then concludes with the right corrective—not the elimination of technology, but their productive use.”

  —MARK BAUERLEIN, Ph.D., professor, Emory University; author of The Dumbest Generation

  “This is an amazing book! A superb piece of scholarship and writing. This book must receive the maximum possible exposure, it is vital to the success and survival of our families and our way of life.”

  —Lt. Col. DAVE GROSSMAN, author of On Combat and On Killing, coauthor of Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill

  “This important book powerfully debunks the many harmful myths about the benefits of media and technology in the lives of children and families. Children, families and all of society have much to gain from Wired Child.”

  —DIANE E. LEVIN, Ph.D., Professor of Education, Wheelock College; coauthor of So Sexy So Soon

  “Freed explodes technology myths with clear and compelling evidence that every parent, teacher, and family professional should read. This book shows how to reclaim our children’s well-being from tech makers and marketers.”

  —JOE KELLY, author of Dads and Daughters

  WIRED CHILD

  Reclaiming Childhood in a Digital Age

  by Richard Freed, Ph.D.

  Copyright © 2015 Richard Freed, Ph.D.

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN:150321169X

  ISBN 13: 9781503211698

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014920499

  CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

  North Charleston, South Carolina

  To my wife Rae

  and our daughters, Madeline and Elena

  Contents

  Introduction

  How destructive digital-age myths are undermining children’s development—and what we can do to give them the healthy childhood that they need and deserve.

  1. Build the Strong Family Your Child Needs

  Most parents believe that technology brings the family closer. Why it’s the opposite and how to foster the parent-child bond.

  2. Boost Children’s Self-Control

  Contrary to claims that video gaming builds a better brain, kids who game more have less self-control, a brain skill that may be even more important than I.Q. How to improve your child’s ability to persevere through challenges.

  3. Promote Kids’ Academic Success

  Refuting the hype, popular entertainment technologies are dragging down kids’ academic performance. Why traditional schooling has never been more important and how to increase kids’ interest and success in school.

  4. Protect Children from Video Game/Internet Addiction

  Popular technologies pose no risks, right? Wrong. An epidemic of video game/Internet addiction is consuming the lives of our children and teens. How to prevent this devastating plague.

  5. Tackle the Unique Tech Problems Faced by Boys and Girls

  Boys are losing out to girls who game less and study more. But girls face their own tech challenges. Helping our boys and girls find a constructive path in a high-tech age.

  6. Be the Loving, Strong Guide Your Child Needs

  The widely accepted myth that kids understand tech better than parents has intimidated many parents, so they don’t try to guide kids’ tech use. Learn how to parent wisely in a digital world.

  7. Nurture Young Children’s Brain Development

  Due to false promises, babies and preschoolers are spending much of their lives staring at screens, missing experiences vital for development. Give young kids the childhood they need.

  8. Keep Your Kids Close

  Preteens and teens now typically shift their ties from parents to peers who are accessible 24/7 via tech. But the bond with parents is more important and must be kept strong.

  9. Give Sensation-Seeking Teens the Help They Need

  Teens are supposed to be tech-savvy, but science proves otherwise. How to help teens—with minds heavy on the accelerator, light on the brake—navigate a distraction-filled tech environment.

  10. Achieve the Elusive: Kids’ Productive Use of Technology

  It’s easy to get kids to use technology but challenging to get them to use it productively. How to help children use tech constructively.

  Conclusion

  Why President Kennedy got it right about technology.

  Acknowledgments

  Notes

  Introduction

  Six months ago, Erin bought her seven-year-old son Jacob a tablet computer. What she heard in the media made her hope the device would give her son a leg up on learning. At his mom’s urging, Jacob started playing games advertised to improve math skills, but he quickly discovered entertainment video games. His passionate desire to play these was like nothing his mother had ever seen in the child.

  At first Erin found she could use the tablet as an incentive to get Jacob to do things like finish his homework or clean his room; however, as she told me in counseling for her son, Jacob’s use of the tablet quickly became obsessive. He asked to game constantly, and he started to bargain about homework, saying he would do it, except only in exchange for more game time than they’d agreed. Erin felt her son was c
hanging in other ways, too. Activities he had enjoyed, like playing outside and reading, became less and less frequent. Most recently, when Erin told Jacob to turn his game off, he threw a tantrum and fumed for more than an hour.

  Are you feeling a disconnect between what is promised about children’s technology and what you’ve experienced yourself? Do claims that technology will bring the family closer seem out of sync with kids who retreat to corners or back rooms with their mobile devices for hours at a time? Are assurances of technology’s amazing learning opportunities contradicted by the reality that kids often prefer playing video games, social networking, and texting over doing their schoolwork?

  What explains this disconnect? In Wired Child, I’ll talk about how our children’s technology use is defined by profound myths. These myths—many cultivated by those who sell kids their gadgets—encourage the wiring up of a nation of children at the expense of what science is now telling us about their developmental needs.

  Marketing tugs on our heartstrings and tells us that all these distracting gadgets—somehow—will bring families closer. A stirring TV commercial for Apple’s iPhone shows a young teen whose phone seems to keep him away from his family’s holiday celebration. At the end of the ad, we learn he’s been videotaping family moments. As the family watches his creation, it brings everyone together. The message to parents is clear: Don’t believe your own eyes, your concerns are all wrong, buy your kids iPhones and they will be closer to you—even if it looks like they’re ignoring you in favor of their phones. Many of those making YouTube comments on the ad said it brought tears,1 however, such consummate salesmanship (the ad was nominated for a 2014 Emmy for Outstanding Television Commercial)2 belies research that shows our increasing focus on gadgets is pulling the family apart.

  A number of pundits claim traditional schooling has lost its value and that the latest tech gadgets offer kids the learning experiences they need most.3 In reality, research indicates that technologies our kids typically spend so much time with, including video games and social networks, hinder their success in school. Moreover, we’ll see that academic success has never been more important.

  A FLOOD OF TECHNOLOGY

  Our children’s recreational use of screens and phones is exploding, up considerably from years past,4 so that it is now the dominant activity in their lives. According to the latest Kaiser Family Foundation research, today’s children 8 to 18 years old spend an astounding 5½ hours every day indulging in various entertainment screen technologies—including video games, social networks, online videos, and TV—about 7½ hours each day if screens that are used at the same time (e.g., the computer and TV) are counted separately.5 High-school-age kids somehow manage to spend an additional 2½ hours each day texting and talking on the phone. The result is that our kids spend far more time playing with their gadgets than they do attending school.

  There’s no doubt that our young people need to learn to use technology productively, but the Foundation finds that kids spend a paltry 16 minutes a day at home using the computer for schoolwork.6 The bottom line is that a remarkable portion of our children’s and teens’ lives is taken up with digital self-amusement. It’s this incredible overuse of screen and phone entertainment technologies that, as we see in this book, threatens their connection to family, academic effort, and many other important activities.

  DO YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO GUIDE YOUR CHILD’S TECH USE?

  Many popular media voices suggest that kids know more than their parents or teachers when it comes to technology. This parenting notion stems from the digital native-digital immigrant belief first articulated by video game developer Marc Prensky. He calls children “digital natives” because they have grown up with digital technologies and are therefore comfortable with them, while their relatively tech-inexperienced parents and teachers are “digital immigrants.”7

  Prensky holds that parents’ proper role is to buy their kids lots of e-gadgets, sit back, and watch the magic happen.8 Turning the traditional family hierarchy on its head, the digital native-digital immigrant belief marginalizes parents and teachers as technologically incompetent, and maintains that kids are better judges of how they should use their devices and time.

  I will show that the digital native-digital immigrant belief is a myth. It confuses the ease with which our kids use their gadgets with something that is far more important: understanding how lives spent playing with devices affect kids’ emotional health, academic performance, and chances of success. Parents understand these concerns because they have greater life experience, adult brain development, and better judgment. Nonetheless, the myth has convinced many parents to do what former generations would have considered unthinkable—to step away from guiding kids in the waking activity that takes up more of their time than any other.

  WHY DIGITAL MYTHS PREVAIL

  Why do digital myths triumph over science? Much of the reason is America’s abiding trust in technology. Our country’s emergence coincided with the Industrial Revolution. Our progress has been tied to advances in transportation, medicine, and other industries. We welcome new technologies, we adore our gadgets, and we revere those who make them. As Scott Keeter of the Pew Research Center notes, “If the US has a national religion, the closest thing to it is faith in technology.”9 Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and other industry leaders are today’s gods.

  The makers of the tech gadgets that our kids use almost exclusively for entertainment, including video games, phones, and even computers, have hitched a ride on our goodwill for technology. Even if it looks like kids game, text, and gossip endlessly on their devices to the exclusion of family and school, marketing and other popular culture elements tell us we’ve got it all wrong. Our concerns are misguided, and our kids need more and more gadgets most of all.

  Media outlets that parents rely on to make effective decisions have financial ties to the producers of kids’ technologies, so it’s not surprising they help build and maintain technology myths. Think about how much TV and Internet technology news looks and sounds like advertising as it highlights the bells and whistles of the latest gadgets. To suggest that kids actually power down their devices and spend time with their families or schoolwork is bad for business, so it’s not said.

  Makers of kids’ tech products use other channels to influence parents. Much as the tobacco industry once did, high-tech companies fund pseudo-scientific organizations that appear objective but promote a pro-industry agenda with little acknowledgement of objective current research. When information leaked that Facebook was considering opening its social network to children younger than age 13, many child development experts cautioned against this move. They warned that young minds don’t have good defenses against cyberbullying, and kids’ use of social networks is linked to poor grades. Nonetheless, immediately following news of Facebook’s expansion plans, the directors of ConnectSafely heaped praise on the possible move in high-profile national press.10 Despite its parent-friendly name, ConnectSafely is funded by Facebook and other companies financially interested in getting kids to spend even more time using commercial technologies.11

  Digital-age myths also triumph because high-tech devices have a remarkable ability to occupy children without caregiver attention. Industry claims that these devices babysit and educate kids exploit parents who have less time and resources available for their children than prior generations. The extended family—which played an important role in sharing the parenting burden since the beginning of history—is increasingly unavailable. Today’s parents work and commute much longer hours than past generations, often leaving kids to fend for themselves. Assurances that more attention-grabbing gadgets can solve this challenge sound enticing but mislead parents.

  Industry denials of the risks of technology addiction also keep parents from questioning the speed and intensity of our children’s shift towards the virtual world. However, brain imaging shows that certain behaviors, such as gambling and video game use, work just like drugs, trigge
ring an avalanche of dopamine, a powerful, reward-based neurotransmitter, into the brain.12 Millions of children, teens, and adults in the US and worldwide now suffer from video game and Internet addiction. Countries such as China, South Korea, and Japan are acting to protect their children from tech addictions, yet the US has been slow to recognize the problem and its consequences.

  In my work as a child and adolescent psychologist, it’s abundantly clear that the symptoms children and teens experience fit the classic definition of addiction: continued use in spite of serious negative consequences. Over time, addicted kids require more and more technology to achieve the same amount of pleasure. Parents are tearful in my office as they describe how their efforts to limit their child’s technology use are met by kids slamming their fists through walls, physical attacks, or kids becoming withdrawn and suffering from depression and thoughts of suicide.

  Finally, as parents, our own love affair with technology makes it hard for us to recognize the costs of wiring up this generation of children. As a Microsoft marketer aptly describes, “As a society, we’re in a moment of major gadget lust and overwhelming choice.”13 We are awed by the way our devices keep us continually in the know, entertained, and in touch with others; we develop powerful bonds to these machines. Despite every intention of engaging with our kids, we find ourselves taking another peek at our computer or phone, sending just one more email or text. “I’ll be right with you sweetie….”

  FROM MYTH TO SCIENCE

  The understanding that myths define our children’s technology use emerged from my daily efforts to help families. I have worked with hundreds of parents who were misled by our culture’s “all-tech-is-good-all-the-time” hype, only to find things go very wrong as their children’s gadget use distances them from family, detracts from school success, and sometimes leads to addiction. I became determined to expose these myths, and the result is this book.

  In Wired Child, I make the case that we need to stop accepting on faith the gadget-dominated life thrust upon our kids, and I show that research makes a better guide for our decisions. We’ll see that the push to give our kids so many playtime devices is based on widely held but inaccurate notions, and that our kids thrive most when they are connected to the two most crucial elements of their well-being: family and school.