Social media addiction is not just a problem for children. In addition to legislation, something else is needed

“When it comes to social media we parents are sometimes just kids trying to set limits for other kids.”

At one of the windows of the 10-story building, two little girls are sitting on the windowsill, almost glued to the window, and looking into the alleyway from which their parents emerge in the afternoon or evening. I have been sitting there for some time, in a tableau of longing, boredom and restlessness.

When we are not at school, kindergarten or playing, we are all at some point in this painting, which only changes the floor and the characters: one girl instead of two, a boy, a girl and a boy. I'm in front of the block, playing badminton and playing badly, because I look at my two younger sisters and I know how they feel; I don't like this state of waiting, even though I know mom and dad come home every day.

In search of parents

This is how human children are programmed, to need the presence of their parents and to be loyal to them beyond limits. For generations, children are always waiting for their parents: to return from where they are, to finish their chores, to play with them, to see them.

So are today's children, but they are no longer waiting for us glued to a window, but to the screen of an electronic device. The fact that they seem completely engrossed in their phone and don't even look at us doesn't mean that this need for connection is gone, but that they have a way to meet it in an inappropriate way that creates new and new needs that are impossible to ever satisfy.

Amid the global trend of restricting children's access to social networks, there is a risk of being left with the wrong impression that it is a children's problem. In reality, it is a problem of families and much more than that.

Social media consumption is addictive

Psychiatrist Anna Lembke, who directs Stanford's Dual Diagnosis Clinic in Addiction Medicine and is the author of “Dopamine Nation. Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence,” uses the term addiction unequivocally.

“Social media is, in fact, a drug, and it's purposefully designed to work like a drug. It's all about intensity, quantity, variety: the endless flow of content, the likes, the constant count of reactions. That doesn't mean we can't use it, but it means we have to be very careful about how we use it, just like we should be careful about how we use any drug,” she said, a few years ago, in an ample dialogue with Andrew Huberman, the abridged version of which you can watch here.

“We are like a baby with a bottle”

Himself a renowned researcher in the field of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford University, Huberman was then bringing up an essential aspect, the relationship of parents with technology.

“I have a friend who works as an obstetrician, who attends births, and he told me that a lot of pregnant women just don't give birth without a phone in their hand anymore. And that hand used to be the one that was holding their partner's hand. Maybe that says more about relationships than phones, but they seem to have become some kind of emotional security,” Huberman said.

When it comes to the phone and our online presence, he observes, we adults have become “kind of infantile.”

“We're like a baby on a bottle. I wonder if we've regressed, and I think we've regressed a little bit in terms of our online behavior, our inability to act like adults,” Huberman said.

The mirror that the researcher puts in front of us is not easy to look at: when it comes to new social networks, parents, we are sometimes just children trying to set limits for other children.

When parents share addiction

As with any addiction, the younger the age at which consumption begins, the greater the risks, given that children's brains are still developing.

In another interview, Lembke advised parents not to buy their children smartphones until the age of 13 and only give them access to the Internet occasionally and for limited periods of time. On the other hand, he related a revealing fact that he encountered in his medical practice. “We see families where parents complain that their kids are on their phones, and while they're talking, the phone rings or they get a text, and they're looking at their phones, obviously just as addicted.”

What solutions are there?

Reducing dependence on technology should, in her view, be a “group project,” “because it's a disease of the family system, and it's a disease of the system, period.” In Romania, the number of active TikTok users has exceeded nine million, children, parents and grandparents alike.

We will never be able to go back to pre-social media, all we can do now is minimize the risks. Anna Lembke believes the first step is to have a conversation about the addictive nature of social media and the mechanisms designed to steal your attention for hours, such as notifications, invitations to post content, comments, reactions, infinite scrolling.

Another thing is to create a behavioral contract for the use of technology and social media, a so-called digital etiquette, for the whole family to respect, not just the children. When is it okay and appropriate to use the devices and when is it not? And what can we do together as a family to set very clear boundaries about appropriate use?

Each of us should have clearly defined periods for using social networks and times of the day when we are not on our phones at all, believe Anna Lembke and Andrew Huberman.

In the same way, we should prioritize real-life encounters and activities that make you feel good naturally, like exercise. For young people, they recommend “group disconnection,” meetings where no one has a phone and so no one “misses” anything because everyone is doing the same thing.

Children don't need perfect parents, they need available parents

What is frightening about the impact of technology today is how it creates all the conditions for disconnection between parents and children. It is no exaggeration to say that today you can share the same house, the same room and sometimes the same sofa with your child, all the while being in completely different worlds. I don't think there's any point in judging ourselves too harshly for this; I for one prefer to look at this situation as a vulnerability that I share with my child, only that he is more exposed and fragile.

Reputable researchers such as Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson show that a parent's attentive and consistent emotional presence influences long-term brain development and functioning.

Legislation may be able to keep children away from social media, but it will not be able to give them what only we imperfect but important adults in their lives can give them.

As Siegel says, children don't need perfect parents either. They need available parents.