I couldnt get a phone until i started highschool (i had very limited access to a tablet at home). This resulted in me being unable to participate in any of the group chats that my peers were using, and missing the necessary context to understand a significant amount of topics they discussed even in person. Up to the point smartphones started to spread in my class i was strongly involved in the community, and i would say i had sufficient social skills. After that i started to get socially isolated, and this i would say severely affected my social development for many years.
Nowadays im happy that i spent most of my free time reading and learning extracurricular topics while many other were binging youtube, but its only because in the last couple of years i successfully started to develop my social side and engage more with others, while keeping the benefits of being left alone with my thoughts for extended periods. However i wouldnt have been able to do this on my own (i convinced myself that my isolation is a good thing, and as a coping mechanism i looked down on others socialising, smalltalk, etc.), and was very lucky with a couple of people that got me out of this isolation. That said i still have to undo a lot of damage on this area.
I dont know how a parent could balance these things, but i would assume that the most important thing is to help the kid find hobbies that engage them, so that scrolling endlessly is not that enticing, while giving them time on their phone to nurture their relationships online (this could be restricted with scheduling wifi access on the router, etc), and of course educating them on the potential harms of the internet.
Also i dont really have a solution to this, but i noticed on myself that when i had restricted access to something (for example the wifi turned off at 8pm) that meant the restricted activities value went way up in my head and i maxed out on it, often even though i would have enjoyed doing something else more.
its hard to say how much of the issues i experience today is really because of modern tech
i got into gaming at a very young age, and i spent most of my time just by myself playing singleplayer stuff as opposed to going out with the other kids. im not sure whether that was really a result of getting into pc gaming though, as i wasnt all that social even before that and had trouble making friends
not getting a phone until high school added to the issue because the other kids would be talking about things i flat out didnt know about, leading to further isolation
nowadays i just dont really make friends in person, all of my friendships and the like are online and based on common interests in video games and such
i dont know whether spending too much time on devices is to blame for that, or whether spending too much time on devices allowed me to find friends and people i care about regardless of the trouble i have engaging with people in person
I think its easy to get into a cycle where one finds it hard to socialise in person, starts to live that aspect out more online, and then offline interactions feel even harder relative to that.
Online relationships can be really helpful, but at the same time it doesnt really fulfill some of our basic social needs. When i found a friendgroup where i could finally be completely open and where physical affection was encouraged it was like an enlightenment. Up to that point i was kind of miserable, but couldnt even realise why, only afterwards did i realise how socially deprived i was. I think nowadays to some degree most people are that way to some degree, especially males.
Hope you will find good relationships in person and never give up on it, i would have never thought that i will be able to until it happened.
I couldnt get a phone until i started highschool (i had very limited access to a tablet at home). This resulted in me being unable to participate in any of the group chats that my peers were using, and missing the necessary context to understand a significant amount of topics they discussed even in person. Up to the point smartphones started to spread in my class i was strongly involved in the community, and i would say i had sufficient social skills. After that i started to get socially isolated, and this i would say severely affected my social development for many years.
Nowadays im happy that i spent most of my free time reading and learning extracurricular topics while many other were binging youtube, but its only because in the last couple of years i successfully started to develop my social side and engage more with others, while keeping the benefits of being left alone with my thoughts for extended periods. However i wouldnt have been able to do this on my own (i convinced myself that my isolation is a good thing, and as a coping mechanism i looked down on others socialising, smalltalk, etc.), and was very lucky with a couple of people that got me out of this isolation. That said i still have to undo a lot of damage on this area.
I dont know how a parent could balance these things, but i would assume that the most important thing is to help the kid find hobbies that engage them, so that scrolling endlessly is not that enticing, while giving them time on their phone to nurture their relationships online (this could be restricted with scheduling wifi access on the router, etc), and of course educating them on the potential harms of the internet.
Also i dont really have a solution to this, but i noticed on myself that when i had restricted access to something (for example the wifi turned off at 8pm) that meant the restricted activities value went way up in my head and i maxed out on it, often even though i would have enjoyed doing something else more.
its hard to say how much of the issues i experience today is really because of modern tech
i got into gaming at a very young age, and i spent most of my time just by myself playing singleplayer stuff as opposed to going out with the other kids. im not sure whether that was really a result of getting into pc gaming though, as i wasnt all that social even before that and had trouble making friends
not getting a phone until high school added to the issue because the other kids would be talking about things i flat out didnt know about, leading to further isolation
nowadays i just dont really make friends in person, all of my friendships and the like are online and based on common interests in video games and such
i dont know whether spending too much time on devices is to blame for that, or whether spending too much time on devices allowed me to find friends and people i care about regardless of the trouble i have engaging with people in person
I think its easy to get into a cycle where one finds it hard to socialise in person, starts to live that aspect out more online, and then offline interactions feel even harder relative to that.
Online relationships can be really helpful, but at the same time it doesnt really fulfill some of our basic social needs. When i found a friendgroup where i could finally be completely open and where physical affection was encouraged it was like an enlightenment. Up to that point i was kind of miserable, but couldnt even realise why, only afterwards did i realise how socially deprived i was. I think nowadays to some degree most people are that way to some degree, especially males.
Hope you will find good relationships in person and never give up on it, i would have never thought that i will be able to until it happened.