BBC reports on a social trend: little kids hate their parents’ use of smart phones. “I don’t like the phone because my parents are on their phone every day. A phone is sometimes a really bad habit” — this child’s comment was reported by a second-grade teacher in Louisiana. Another comment reported by the same teacher: “I hate my mom’s phone and I wish she never had one.”
BBC also reports that one mother said “her teenagers were just as bad, often choosing their phone over family time.” But the teens are simply doing what they see adults do: giving lower priority to their face-to-face interactions than to their phone interactions. It’s just like that old song by Harry Chapin:
“And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me
“He’d grown up just like me,
“My boy was just like me.”
I see this all the time as I walk around San Mateo, where we live, and Palo Alto, where I work: the two year old having to amuse itself in the stroller while the parent focuses solely on their smartphone; the elementary age child standing in front of the parent waiting to play catch while the parent texts someone far away; the parent brushing off the young adolescent who tries to get their attention while they’re looking at their phone….