Jenny Radesky MD, FAAP
Assistant Professor of Developmental Behavioral
Pediatrics
Boston University School of Medicine
Last summer, a small but fascinating study in the
journal Computers in Human Behavior, showed
that if you take away preteens’ mobile devices and make them
hang out with their peers in the country for one week, they get better at
reading other people’s facial expressions. So which has more influence on preteen social skills, the
unplugged time with peers or communing with nature? Hard to tell, but developmental science suggests the former
plays a large role.
Reading someone else’s facial expressions and other
body language such as gestures, posture, how their eyes look, how their voice
sounds is key for social and emotional communication. Developmental psychologists believe these nonverbal cues are
central to infant-caregiver attachment. For example, infants come to understand their own emotional
states and experiences by looking at trusted caregivers and reading their facial expressions, and
modulating their reactions accordingly.
(“This is new…is mom OK? Alright then I’m OK”).
Toddlers and preschoolers develop social skills by learning
to reference, read, and react to other people’s behavior. My patients with ADHD and autism often
struggle to read peer social cues correctly, with frustrating
consequences. We spend lots of
time, energy, and money trying to explicitly teach these children social skills
through the practice of interacting with others
over and over again to tighten up the synaptic connections that regulate social
communication. What is lost when preteens
and teens look at smartphones and devices for so many hours a day are opportunities
for practicing
face-to-face social interactions. This
may explain the study’s findings.
However my chief concern regarding reading social
cues (and my focus of research) is parents of children under 6, especially parents
of fussy, intensely reactive, or poorly regulated children. These children can be hard to
read. What did that cry mean? That tantrum out of the blue? This insistence on suddenly refusing
baths?
In order to effectively teach children how to
regulate their behavior, we need to interact with them in what psychologist Lev
Vygotsky termed the child’s “Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD).” This means knowing their cognitive and emotional sweet spots: what they
can do on their own, what they can’t do, and what they can do and learn with an
adult’s help. You can’t fit the
puzzle pieces in yet? Let me guide your hand a little bit
until you figure it out by yourself.
You can’t calm down when you’re frustrated yet. Let me help you identify what emotion you’re feeling and then
show you some options for calming your body down. And I’ll slowly take my support away until you can do this
skill on your own.
Caregivers need to be tuned in to a child’s
temperament, developmental stage, and emotional state to be able to read her social
cues and teach her within her ZPD.
In order to be attuned to a child, adults need practice observing him, over and
over, through multiple experiences, interactions, reactions, and social
settings, to know his rhythms and quirks.
We don’t need to be helicopter parents, observing and attuning to every
single detail, but we do need a ‘good enough’ amount of experiences to know
what the child might need when he or she is acting out.
Which brings me to why I study parent mobile device
use, specifically the absorption that occurs with the multitudes of important
or attention-grabbing things we do with our mobile devices. With this sort of competition for
attention, infants can’t always get a facial expression reaction that helps
them understand their experience; toddlers may act out more (at least mine does)
to get our attention, which is unpleasant when we are trying to concentrate on
something important on the device. When we are absorbed with devices, we may
not be as cognitively flexible or emotionally ready to “read” what annoying
child behavior means and how to meet children in their zone. We may miss important social-emotional
teaching opportunities. So far, my
research findings suggest that when parents’ attention is directed at a device,
they are less conversationally responsive, have fewer nonverbal interactions
with children, and are potentially more hostile when children make bids for
their attention. I am crafting my
future studies to understand the mechanisms of these findings, so that guidance
for parents can be developed.
In the meantime, we can continue to recommend
unplugged family time, family dinners, and parent-child play, so parents can
know their child’s zones. These
Common Sense Media videos are also a good start:
