phone face

Historical perspective: CNET.com advised in 2018 that your kids hate your smartphone addiction. The average American now spends about five hours a day on a mobile device, and a growing body of research suggests kids resent competing for attention with the gadgets. One Louisiana elementary school asked students to write essays on an invention they wish had never been created. Four out of 21 chose the smartphone. “I hate my mom’s phone,” a second-grader wrote, “and I wish she never had one.” One study of parental behavior found that the more parents used their phones, the more their preschool children whined, sulked, or became irritable, easily frustrated, or hyperactive... even if the phone use was within a normal level. Even babies became uncomfortable when they saw their parents’ distracted “phone face” as well as dogs, who need eye contact.