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Imagine it is Friday night, your family’s activity night. First, you play a game, then watch a movie, and then you enjoy milkshakes. You are ready to start, but everyone is on their phone. “Are we going to start yet?” You ask your mother. No response.
That familiar sight of children, teenagers, and adults on mobile phones is seen in every town and city in America, and the epidemic is growing. Younger citizens are receiving mobile phones and tablets, and family communication drops drastically.
According to an article created by Human Performance Resource Center: “Cell phones can make you feel more connected, but they also can distract you and your family from connecting with each other in person.” So we have to majorly cut back on mobile phone usage and connect with real living things: human beings.
The mobile phone goes further back than Apple, Inc. releasing the iPhone on Friday, June 26, 2007. We’ll have to go back to 1943…
The idea for a mobile telephone was considered possible back in 1943. But in the 1940s, the rotary dial telephone ruled. The most popular model, the Western Electric Model 302, was a large desk telephone, and a mobile telephone seemed unrealistic. But it happened thirty years later.
On Tuesday, April 3, 1973, Martin Cooper, a man working at Motorola, made the first mobile phone call on Sixth Avenue near the Manhattan Hilton.
On Wednesday, September 21, 1983, the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, the first commercially-available mobile phone, went on sale.
Mobile phones have evolved and improved over the years. Cell phone addiction most possibly started on Friday, June 29, 2007 when Apple, Inc. released the iPhone. It was a major event.
Children, teenagers, adolescence, and adults need to unplug more because they are the groups most at risk. And now children younger than ten are receiving mobile phones. Some children as young as six have a mobile phone.
According to an article publish by TechCrunch, “The average age for a child getting their first smartphone is now 10.3 years.” That’s good, but 11 or 12 would be a better age to get a mobile phone.
What You Should Do
- Hold Family Meeting
- Review each person’s cell phone usage, see what is working, and talk about what you can work on.
- Use Good Communication Skills
- Practice active listening and show curiosity.
- Create a Family Media Plan
- Agree on a family media plan and answer questions like:
- Can we agree to keep phones out of view, in a basket, or on silent at meal times and other family times?
- When do we want to use cell phones to play family games together?
- Agree on a family media plan and answer questions like:
So seriously, get off your phone and have fun with your family. According to an article published by Virginia Cooperative Extension, “Marriage and family therapists often report that poor communication is a common complaint of families who are having difficulties.”
Families, read these questions and ask yourself:
- Do you want your family to be like triangles, holding strong and impossible to break, or like paper, useful but is weak and frail?
- Would you agree for mobile phones to be on silent, in a basket, or out of view during dinner and family time?
- How could your family benefit if mobile phones weren’t always with you, like a shadow of the Force?
- Would you have less anxiety towards checking your phone every six seconds 110 times a day?
https://www.hprc-online.org/articles/are-cell-phones-ruining-family-time
https://techcrunch.com/2016/05/19/the-average-age-for-a-child-getting-their-first-smartphone-is-now-10-3-years/
https://www.pubs.ext.vt.edu/350/350-092/350-092.html