Are you raising your children on touchscreens?

I listened to a recent interview on The Oprah Podcast in which she had an eye-opening conversation with Jonathan Haidt, an American social psychologist and author, who published a book titled The Anxious Generation. He affirms that the combination of technological devices and parents’ overprotective attitudes has changed childhood intrinsically and caused an increase in mental illnesses.

He is not the first psychologist to say that and to warn parents about the dangers of technology. In many parts of the world, experts are concerned about the future of the younger generations because they see where they are heading.

Children and adolescents are growing up disconnected from themselves and each other more and more. They spend a lot of time in virtual realities and because of this their positive human qualities such as critical thinking, communicating, creating, and feeling for others are declining fast. Therefore, the young generation is at risk of turning into dysfunctional adults, incapable of independent thinking and of experiencing emotions. This will have consequences in all areas of their lives, from building meaningful, deep relationships, to finding jobs they love, creating a solid family, and feeling satisfied with themselves and life. They will be reduced to mere instruments of the System for making money and serving it blindly.

Do we really want that? I bet we don’t.

So why do we put our children on that path?

Here’s what I think: we are too absorbed, both physically and emotionally, by our daily routines. And although that is understandable—some have to work hard to maintain our families—I wonder why we have children. Because what children need to grow mentally healthy and strong is time spent with us, time being loved by us.

But don’t feel guilty. There is still time to reverse the situation and save their lives. The first thing to do is to reorganize yourself and your life. If you organize yourself—and I mean it emotionally—you will make time to spend with your children. This is because we often live in an internal chaos that doesn’t allow us to see our reality with clarity. And once we see our reality with clarity, we can also see how to improve it.

The second thing is to understand the reason why you had children. And be honest even if it hurts. Is it because you thought you could do it all? Were you looking for a sense of purpose and fulfillment? Were you scared of realizing your dreams and needed a pretext not to do it? Did you want a continuation of family lines? Were you influenced by societal expectations and norms? Or was it because of the desire for security in old age?

Why is knowing the reasons that you had children important? Because part of the solution to the problem lies within the reasons. Many people have children for the most disparate reasons, forgetting the fundamental one, love, meaning the will to help yourself and others grow and evolve, as M. Scott Peck said in The Road Less Traveled.

If you are mature enough to recognize that love is exactly what your decision to have children lacked, you could feel ashamed now. But there’s no need for that. Know that most of the choices we make, even to have children, are conditioned by a programming that lacks love and that was set up by family and society.

Nevertheless, you now have a family and if you really care about your offspring, you should consider your behavior and your parenting, so that you can reprogram yourself. This means learning to really love yourself so that you can help your children grow sane and healthy, and navigate the technological era without relinquishing their humanity. Because it is only with love that we can achieve that.

On our behavior depends the future of the next generation. Psychologist Haidt discusses this very clearly. Shocking data that he shares during the interview is that “in the States 40% of two-year olds have an iPad and around 48% of adolescents are online almost constantly.”

This should make us reflect.

Here are some important points to consider:

• Are family bonds strong enough?

If our children use technology frequently to seek relationships, this could mean that they don’t experience genuine and strong connections in the family.

• Do we do activities with our children? Do we have quality conversations with them?

Children often use technology because they don’t receive enough attention at home. This leads them to emotionally disconnect from others and themselves.

• As a parent, are you often on technological devices?

We use technology at home to entertain ourselves, often losing control of the time we spend online. This leads us to distract ourselves from the care that our children need, with the result that they are left alone and at the mercy of virtual realities.

• Are you all living “together apart?”

If you and your family members are often together on technological devices, this changes the way you communicate with each other: attention is diminished, use of language is poor, and understanding is deficient. The result is a disruptive change in communication.

• Has your home turned into a battlefield?

The excessive use of technology can lead to conflict between family members, especially when you try to help your children understand how to behave online and how much time to spend on their devices.

Enough reasons to pull the brake, right?

If you are still not convinced, Haidt explains how technology destroys the ability to pay attention, causes trouble reading, addiction problems, and mental illnesses. He points out the dehumanizing and degrading consequences of spending too much time on touchscreens.

And I agree. We are in a process of dehumanization and our children and adolescents are the main target.

The more devoid we are of our positive human qualities, the easier it is to be filled with instructions from the System that do not honor us and that make us do whatever the System wants, like displaying destructive behaviors toward ourselves and others and supporting narratives that cause harm. The list goes on.

Our children and adolescents are very likely to become the new slaves of the System that rules the world. Whether you believe it or not, we are not really free. Most of our choices do not come from our will, and what we do is often conditioned by our family and institutions which are used by the System to implement its agenda. And social media and AI are two new instruments that serve that purpose.

Haidt’s observation says a lot about this: “Humanity is getting less intelligent since 2012 exactly when everything gets screen-based”. Is this merely a coincidence?

Imagine what can be done to and with unintelligent people. If you don’t know what Intelligence is, here is the definition:

the ability to learn, understand, and make judgments or have opinions that are based on reason

Think of your children without these capabilities.

Without adding to this, what if we could reverse the situation before it is too late? What if we could help our children have an exciting and fun childhood in the real world? I bet this would save their lives and prepare them for a future of real well-being and freedom.

It all starts with you, their parents.

By taking small steps every day to reorganize yourself and your life, you can help your children grow into happy, sane, and healthy adults. Then you can go to bed with the feeling of having given them a meaningful life.

If you are ready to invest in yourself and in your children’s future, go to my website