Technology instigating communication breakdown
Poorer social skills, inability to daydream, anxiety disorder - Linda Yeung learns about the costs of overusing smart devices
Before Larry Rosen calls his 22-year-old daughter, he lets her know in advance by sending a text message. Phones have become such a popular tool for messaging and social networking that fewer people are using them to make phone calls. Face-to-face communication is also fast becoming a victim of the smartphone revolution.
The American professor says that as soon as his daughter's phone rings or vibrates she immediately drops what she is doing to check it. It's a behavioural trait that's increasingly common among the younger generation and a subject Rosen, a former chairman of the psychology department at California State University, Dominguez Hills, has studied.
"We are having a problem separating ourselves from our technology," he says. "Research in the US shows that two-thirds of teenagers and young adults check their phone every 15 minutes."
Rosen will address the pertinent topic of "Technology and the Brain - What Parents and Children Need to Know" in a talk this month as part of the annual 21st Century Learning international conference organised by local educators.
With technology becoming more central to our lives, parents have good reason to be concerned about its potential impact on their children. Local youth workers have warned that youngsters' speech development could be adversely affected. "We have not come across any cases of small children experiencing delayed speech because of overindulgence in video games or computers, but their ability to communicate could be hampered by a lack of personal interaction," says Anna Liu Lai-ying, of the Federation of Youth Groups' Youth Assessment and Development Centre.
"Parents leaving their children alone playing video games or playing online for lengthy periods while they carry on with their own chores should be mindful."
