There’s a phenomenon among youth today that sociologists refer to as “glow kids,” and it’s not because they are happy.
The term refers to youth who are exposed to too much screen time. You can’t pull them away from their smart phones or tablets. Trouble can arise if instead of communicating with either their family or friends they resort to social media, which, ironically, can create anti-social behavior.
During their formative years, children learn important social cues by hanging out together.
Think back to the time of riding a bike with a friend. Lost in conversation, you fell off, badly scraping your knee. The friend was there to offer comfort, help straighten the handlebars and steady the bike as you shakily took to the road again.
In that one instance and the hundreds that lie ahead as you played ball, fished along the creek bank, played make-believe up in a tree house, or cooked s’mores over the campfire, you learned the value of compassion and the rewards of making yourself vulnerable — both physically and socially.
That’s how relationships are made, by interacting.
But social media can isolate people, not bring them together. Texting or chatting online falls far short of one-on-one interaction. Humans thrive on hearing another’s voice, of feeling their touch, of looking into each other’s eyes.
IN THIS MONTH’S edition of Scientific American Mind, psychologists warn that children who spend too much time on social media sites such as Facebook can also become susceptible to a symptom they call social comparison, where they feel inferior because everybody else’s lives seem better judging from their posts. What they aren’t considering, of course, is that people only post their personal highlights.
So a feeling of inferiority can ensue, causing children to withdraw into a private world of pain. I’d venture the phenomenon is not isolated to children, but adults as well.
Sociologists also report that time spent on Facebook is time spent unsatisfactorily, much like watching commercial-laden TV or binge eating junk food.
Reading or watching a constant stream of trivia is not rewarding, they say, and can become addictive, just like candy.
ALL THIS illustrates how the world is becoming more complicated for young parents. When my children were young all we had to do was turn off the TV to bring them back into the real world. But the tentacles of today’s technology are more far-reaching, and, it seems, intractable, demanding greater oversight by parents.
In this case, the progress is quantifiable.
