ALONE IN COMPANY: HOW MOBILES HAVE CHANGED FAMILY TIME

There is increasing concern about the excess time children spend in front of device screens and many people worry about the negative effects they can have on overall health and well-being.

The influence of technological changes in the way we interact and in our interactions in person is also worrying. Sherry Turkle, professor of social sciences, coined the famous concept "alone together" (together but alone), which also names one of her books. This concept describes the fact of spend time with our devices without interacting with those who are physically close.

Many people believe that technological changes have had a detrimental impact on the time that family members spend together and over time this "alone but together" It is being done with family life. However, to date there have been very few studies in this regard.

We have conducted new research to get a first real idea of how technology has impacted the way families spend their time in the United Kingdom. For this, we analyze the records of schedules compiled by parents and children between 8 and 16 years of age in 2000 and again in 2015, a period in which rapid changes have occurred at the technological level.

More time at home and alone

Contrary to expectations, we realized that the children spent more time with their parents in 2015 than in 2000. This amounts to a little more than half an hour extra per day (347 minutes per day in 2000 and 379 minutes in 2015) and it should be noted that this is additional time with parents at home.

It is a surprising finding. but a more detailed observation made us see that the children said they spent that time "alone" when they were at home with their parents, so the time of being "alone but together" has increased.

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Our analysis also showed some relatively small changes in time for common family activities, with modern families who spend less time watching television and more time on leisure activities and family meals. However, the total time spent in common activities has not changed.

Our data shows that the use of mobile devices affects all aspects of family time. We also found that both children and parents spent approximately the same amount of time (about 90 minutes) using mobile devices when they were together.

We discovered that all these trends manifest more among the young people from 14 to 16 years old They spent about an hour more at home "alone" with their parents in 2015 than in 2000. The use of mobile devices when they were close to their parents was also more frequent and more concentrated.

Lack of good times?

Experts in the field have long been aware of the ability of technologies to bring families together in homes and although our research seems to indicate that this could be the case, the increase in time at home may also be linked to other issues such as They may be parents' concern for the safety of their children. Research conducted in the USA They have also obtained similar results in the changes that have occurred: adolescents spend less time away from home and away from their parents.

More time together, but less time interacting with each other.

There is increasing evidence that the mere presence of a telephone can negatively affect face-to-face interactions. This could partly explain the parents' notion that there is less and less family cohesion and that they spend less time with their children, as recorded in earlier studies.

In fact, we discovered that both children and parents used phones during family meals, when watching TV or during other activities. So even if it were for a short time, I could have a disproportionate impact on the quality of this time It happens with other family members.

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Of course, in some cases it is possible that mobile devices improve family interactions. For example when family members use electronic devices to watch online videos, play games in multiplayer mode or get in touch with other family members.

More research is needed on the use of mobile devices and content to understand the full impact on daily life and go beyond the commonly accepted negative presuppositions.

But what is clear is that although the increase in time "together but alone" means that families spend more time at home, it does not necessarily mean that family time is better.

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