On Sunday, The New York Times published an article about the risks of using teen devices firing during quarantine – and as you might expect, they went straight to the criteria of guilty parents. There are mushy pictures of a family ruined by a game, and the quote “I failed you as a father” comes in the second sentence. There are also curious comparisons to drug addiction (“There will be an epic withdrawal period” after quarantine, an addiction expert warns) and vague statements about the impressionable nature of young brains.
Before rushing to cut the Playstation Plus subscription for juniors, it’s worth putting things in perspective. We are in the midst of a global crisis and the past ten months have been difficult for everyone. We have seen historic leaps in depression and substance abuse, even among adults, and healthy breakouts are increasingly difficult to happen. Digital entertainment has won many of us over the past year. For many children, it is one of the few places to lead a semi-normal social life, which is why many experts emphasize a balanced approach rather than a straight cut. Digital interaction is an incredibly valuable thing, and dismissing it because of the screen’s abstract panic is irresponsible.
The article briefly discusses online socialization, but saves it for a kind of ironic reflection at the end. After cutting his son off Xbox games for a few weeks, a father said, “I feel bad when I try to restrict him. It is your only socialization. ”For many kids, this is the point: online spaces like Fortnite are the only way to hang out with friends. There is real socialization going on here, and as long as personal contact is a public health risk, these are the only places where it can happen. It is important for children to go out with other children, so cutting screen time is an active isolation factor, causing damage in much more concrete ways than screen time. The only reason to dismiss it is the persistent idea that online socialization does not count at all.
What we are seeing has less to do with time on the screen and more to do with the old problems of social life for teenagers. There are many healthy and social things you can do online, just as there are unhealthy and isolated things you can do offline. Whether this happens on a screen is not the main problem. It’s okay to worry about health-damaging spaces online, whether it’s an eating disorder culture on Instagram or incellular sewage on Reddit – but the problem with these spaces is that they’re not healthy, not that they’re online. Considering the internet as the problem only confuses things and encourages parents to shut down one of their children’s few healthy social channels.
On some level, I understand anxiety here. Parents can also be depressed and anxious! There are a ton of reasons to get stressed out in the world right now, and watching your child play Xbox through it all can make you feel like you’re watching Ed Westwick play holocube in Children of men. I’m sure it’s alienating to see your son playing Fifteen days all day, but if you’re worried about losing contact, it might be time to grab a controller and spend some time in their world.