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If you’re sitting in a waiting room, on the bus or lining up at a cafe, chances are most of the people around you will have their eyes fixed on their phones.
And why wouldn’t they?
Our devices allow us to stay up to date with the news and connect with our families and friends.
We can organise our lives via our pocket-sized devices.
And while we’re often focused on limiting screen time for kids, what about limiting our own screen time in front of kids?
“Some people describe their device as an extension of their own body,” Dr Joanne Orlando told ABC Radio Canberra.
Dr Orlando is an educational technology researcher at Western Sydney University.
“Too much screen time for anyone is a bad thing and most of us know that,” she said.
“But we can’t get away from screens because we’re working with them, kids are learning from them at school, and we use them for just about everything.
“It’s very common for people even to sleep with their phone under their pillow or on their bedside table.
“That phone is with us all the time, 24/7, because it’s become a big part of our identity and we use it to craft our edited lives on social media.”
Dr Orlando said the challenge for parents was to put the phone away when they were with their kids. “Our children learn a lot from us about what is acceptable practice around using a device at home.
“One of the things that children consistently tell me is, ‘Mum is always on Facebook’ or ‘Dad is always on his phone checking emails’.”
While cameras in phones have made it easy to document so much of our lives in pictures, Dr Orlando said many of us had taken it too far.
“How important is it to have a photo of everything?” she said.
“This is instead of just being there in the moment and just enjoying it.
“We need to still enjoy experiences first-hand, rather than just through the eye of our phone camera.”
Dr Orlando suggested families set up rules that would help them limit personal screen time.
“Get everyone to put their phone in the middle of the table so no-one is tempted to touch their phone during a meal,” she said.
“It’s all too easy to fall into bad habits of spending way too much time with our devices.”
This article originally appeared on the ABC News and was written by Hannah Walmsley
