Q&A With the Authors of Connecting
Many have wagered that adolescents’ increased use of social media and technology has caused the current youth mental health crisis in America, and across the world. Much of the current advice for parents is grounded in abstinence from technology. What sets your book apart from that conversation?
Dr Radesky: This book acknowledges that parenting is complex. There are many layers to shaping a parent-child relationship, a child’s mental health, and the wellbeing of the whole family, so we try to avoid overly simplistic answers. The way you frame the problem influences the way you frame the solutions. If we only thought the problem was technology and the only solution was restricting or taking technology away, we would be ignoring all of the important determinants of youth mental health – like relationships, engaging with peers and community, and feeling like you matter.
Dr Moreno: We recognize that this is a very hot-button topic and it gets a lot of attention, headlines, and news media and that has really led parents to feel scared and fearful and worried about making the right choice. We know that when we are trying to make complex decisions from a place of fear, it’s really hard to communicate and make a strategy. Our goal is to take the temperature down on this topic so that people can have thoughtful ongoing conversations in a way that centers on family connectedness, youth development, relationship across and within families, and make solutions pragmatic rather than reactive.
You describe in the book that striving to be a perfect parent is not only unachievable, but might be causing parents unnecessary stress. Instead, you propose that parents should instead strive to be “good enough”, what does that look like when parenting around technology?
Dr Radesky: In American society, there’s a lot of anxiety about young people being able to achieve enough, to compete, to have a good job. Part of this is due to scarcity and people feeling like their kids don’t have stable access to things like education, housing or jobs. Part of it is our hyperoptimization culture where we feel like we need to be the best, smartest parent or raise the most successful children. When you are focusing on this performance of an ideal of parenting, or of your child’s achievements, you are not as present in your everyday parenting role. If things go wrong – as they naturally do in life – , you feel like a total failure. It becomes so high stakes that if you have any cracks in that perfect parent persona, you wind up feeling bad about yourself. In truth, life is a series of learning moments. If we take the mindset that we learn and repair through mistakes, we will both be more healthy emotionally and we will be better role models for our kidsThis book focuses on repair as a really essential part of family relationships and our relationship with technology. Your kids may stumble upon things that are not appropriate for them or are upsetting, they may use technology too long and get in arguments with you. But as long as you have created a space where you can talk about these problems and make shared solutions on how to address them, your kids will come out more resilient.
In a world where technology is part of everyday life, whether that’s work, school, or entertainment, what are some ways families can help improve tech habits, while still living their regular lives?
Dr Moreno: In the book we acknowledge that technology really is part of everyday life — for adults it’s typically some part of work, for kids it’s some part of school, it’s also part of entertainment for many families. What we emphasize within the book is ensuring that the relationships that you have within your family, within peers and friends, with extended family, within your neighborhood, your workplace, or your place of worship, that those relationships are really a priority and technology is being used to augment those relationships rather than to detract from them.
You mention in the book that caregivers’ own relationship with tech can model behavior for adolescents.What are some ways families can bond and build emotional intimacy away from their devices?
Dr Moreno: Adolescence is a time where technology and media can be a great bridge between parents and their teenage kids. Parents often describe the adolescent time period as one where it’s challenging to figure out how to have conversations. If you ask a teenager how school was you might just hear “fine” – so media, especially high-quality long-form media, can provide an opportunity to sit down and be with your adolescent for an hour or two. That is amazing in and of itself, but it can lead to follow-up conversations and discussions about what was in the movie: “what did you think of that character?”, “what did you think of that storyline?” Movies that have more risque content can be a great bridge to having some of those more complex conversations about “what did we think about the idea that that character was impaired at that time, what does that tell us, have you seen a situation like that, have I seen a situation like that?” It can really become this way to center your relationship, enjoy things together, and have things to talk about together after.
When teens are using tech and a parent yells at them “Why are you doing that? It’s brain rot!” but the teen sees the parent doing the same activity, it can have really profound implications. Teens are very attuned to the cognitive dissonance of adults who tell them to do something but don’t do it themselves. That is a huge teaching moment to teens. However, another teaching moment is when an adult makes a misstep, acknowledges it and says “next time I am going to try this approach to do better.” That is a very different and very powerful teaching moment.
Children with different levels of anxiety, attention problems, social skills struggles, or other neurodivergent differences often use technology in a different way than neurotypical children. How does this book address children with different needs?
Dr Radesky: We intentionally wrote this book assuming that kids exist along a spectrum of abilities, skills, personalities, and attention spans, so we hope that parents raising neurodivergent kids can see their kid and relevant parenting strategies in this book. We call out some of the ways that a child’s differences – if they are very sensation seeking, if they are very socially inhibited – may shape the way they use media, for example as an avoidance strategy or as a socialization tool. We also talk about alternate activities and therapies that kids may need to build the skills that may not come naturally to them. This will help them not use media in a maladaptive way and it gives them more opportunities to engage in other things that media may have been crowding out. We do know that kids with ADHD and autism spectrum disorder have higher rates of problematic media use, so we pay special attention in this book to the ways that parents can help kids with “lagging skills,” meaning skills that don’t come naturally to them. We try to help families feel engaged in both high quality media experiences and meaningful offline experiences.
The book is split up into four sections that can be read in any order, in fact, you recommend readers to explore chapters as they become relevant in their lives. Why did you choose to organize the book in this way?
Dr Radesky: Parents are busy. We do not expect a parent to be sitting down and reading this book cover to cover. The first part of the book starts with a foundational knowledge about concepts of media that parents can apply to lots of situations- such as how tech can be a connector or disconnector — and how to approach the topic of media with kids in low-stress conversations. The rest of the book is split up by different health and emotional wellbeing topics that parents can read as-needed when they feel the most relevant to them.
“Addiction” has become a buzzword when referencing adolescent technology use. However, you propose that this wording is unhelpful/harmful, and that “problematic” might be a better fitting word. How does the book approach this concept?
Dr Moreno: Addiction has become a buzzword to describe adolescent technology use, and it has become such an overused buzzword that it can start to feel like it doesn’t have meaning. It’s also important to recognize that it carries a fair amount of stigma and some very specific meanings for some families. For families who have experienced having someone they love struggle with substance use addiction it can be a very triggering word and a word that’s traumatic for them to hear when used colloquially. We also know that addiction is a term that often places the blame of the issue on the person, that the person is addicted and it can lead to these feelings of hopelessness and self-blame and shame. For technology, this term does not acknowledge the design of platforms that can lead to overuse or risky use. In this book we really want to move away from blame and shame pointed at youth, we know those aren’t constructive and they aren’t helpful for people to develop healthy behaviors. So we use the term problematic behavior, with the framing that problems can be solved and we want to be part of promoting solutions.
AI use is rapidly evolving and impacting youth, how does the book approach this topic?
Dr Radesky: Research on kids and AI was rapidly evolving as we wrote this book so we tried to include as much research and guidance as we could at the time.. There are surveys of US teens finding that those who are lonely, have less social support, have less family support, and who struggle more in school are showing heavier and riskier signs of AI use. . The risky signs include more dependence, meaning they are having a harder time doing their schoolwork or navigating everyday life without using AI, or that they are starting to prefer AI for social or emotional support compared to humans. They are worried about being a burden to people and prefer the non-judgmental feedback from machines. We provide ways to talk about AI use with teens and how to identify what other supports- such as offline social activities or academic help- that teens may need.