#SmartphoneFree: Consumed By Their Devices

Today I saw one of those viral Facebook posts that goes round. This one (the one above) was written by a teacher who has just left the job.

Usually, I am not a fan of those - I'm the guy whose other blog used to be called 'Why I've Stayed In Teaching' - but Ms. Gentry does make some good points. And yes, some of them are about digital devices such as smartphones:

"PARENTING has changed. SOCIETY has changed. The kids are just the innocent victims of that. Parents are working crazy hours, consumed by their devices, leaving kids in unstable parenting/coparenting situations, terrible media influences... and we are going to give the excuse that the KIDS have changed? What did we expect them to do?"

She goes on to say:

"In the midst of all of this... our response is we need to be "21st Century" schools. 1 to 1 student to technology. Oh. Okay. So forget the basics of relationship building and hands on learning. Kids already can't read social cues and conduct themselves appropriately in social settings... let's toss more devices at them because it looks good on our website."

Her solution was to leave her job to focus on bringing up her own child in a better way - very admirable indeed. Which puts doing away with a smartphone in perspective - if someone can jack in their job in order to live by the principles they believe in, then surely giving up your smartphone is do-able?

In fact, it was an incident with my children that was the straw that broke the camel's back for me:

"We’d set out in our waterproof-everythings for a day of avoiding the house while my wife taught a baking class. I’d tucked my phone away and had purposefully brought a camera – I really wanted to spend a day in the great outdoors with my children without constantly feeling the need to share it with the rest of the world in real time. 

 We’d crossed a few fields, walked through a farmyard, got up-close-and-personal with a group of cows and that’s when it happened. My daughter was standing at the gateway barring us from passing through.

 “What’s the password, Daddy?” 

 I wasn’t sure what the password was. So I asked her. 

 The reply came back: “Daddy’s stupid phone.” 

 It hit me hard. On a day when they hadn’t seen me using my phone, it was still on their minds. And, in their view, it was clearly something negative."

(Taken from my forthcoming TES piece about life without a smartphone)

I realised that in order to bring my children up in a way that I believed in, I'd have to stop modelling such poor behaviour to them. How would I have a leg to stand on when they started asking for their own phones? And if I had to speak to them about their own device usage? I knew there and then that my lack of self-discipline was going to come back to bite me if I didn't do something about it.

I hope not to ignore my daughters due to my screentime. And I hope never to fob them off with a screen so that I don't have to interact with them. But that's just me.