Speaking about smartphones and computers, we are categorical: it is certainly useful and necessary, but evil. Family psychologist Katerina Demina has a different opinion: gadgets have more pluses than minuses, and even more so, they cannot be the cause of conflicts in the family.
Psychologies: Home evening — mom chats in a messenger, dad plays at the computer, the child watches Youtube. Tell me is it okay?
Katerina Demina: This is fine. It’s a way to relax. And if, in addition to hanging in gadgets, family members find time to chat with each other, then it’s generally good. I remember that the whole family — three children and three adults — went to rest on the sea. In order to save money, they rented a small apartment in a tiny village. In the evenings, we went to the same coastal cafe and, waiting for an order, sat, each buried in his phone. We must have looked like a bad, broken family. But in fact, we spent three weeks nose to nose, and the Internet was caught only in this cafe. Gadgets are an opportunity to be alone with your thoughts.
Also, your story is most likely about a teenager. Because a preschooler won’t let you sit in a chat or an online game. He will take the soul out of you: for him, the time spent with dad and mom is very valuable. And for a teenager, leisure time with parents is the least valuable thing in life. For him, communication with peers is much more important.
And if we talk about a couple? Husband and wife come home from work and, instead of throwing themselves into each other’s arms, they stick to devices …
At the initial stage of a relationship, when everything is on fire and melting, nothing can distract you from your loved one. But over time, the distance between partners increases, because we cannot burn all the time. And gadgets are a modern way to build this very distance in pairs. Previously, a garage, fishing, drinking, TV, friends, girlfriends served the same purpose, “I went to a neighbor, and you stir the porridge every five minutes.”
We cannot be constantly in merger with someone. Tired, he picked up the phone, looked at Facebook (an extremist organization banned in Russia) or Instagram (an extremist organization banned in Russia). At the same time, we can lie side by side in bed and each read our own tape, showing each other some funny things, discussing what we read. And this is our form of intimacy. And we can be together all the time and at the same time hate each other.
But don’t phones and computers cause conflicts when a loved one “runs away” into them, and we cannot reach him?
Gadgets cannot be the cause of conflict, just as an ax cannot be blamed for murder, and a pen cannot be blamed for writing talent. Smartphones and tablets are a device for messaging. Including metaphorical — varying degrees of closeness or aggressiveness. Perhaps the relationship has been cracking at the seams for a long time, so the husband, having come home from work, pokes his head at the computer. He could find a mistress, start drinking, but he chose computer games. And the wife is trying to reach out..
It happens that a person does not have close relationships, only gadgets, because it is easier with them. This is dangerous?
Are we confusing cause and effect? There have always been people who are not able to build relationships. Previously, they chose loneliness or relationships for money, today they find refuge in the virtual world. I remember we discussed with a 15-year-old teenager how he sees an ideal relationship with a girl for himself. And he pathetically said: “I want it to be at my elbow when I need it. And when it is not necessary, it did not shine. But this is the relationship of the baby with the mother! I tried to explain to him for a long time that it was infantile. Now the young man has grown up and is building adult relationships …
Escape to the virtual world is often characteristic of those who have not matured and are unable to bear another person next to them. But gadgets only illustrate this, not cause it. But in a teenager, gadget addiction is a really dangerous condition. If he does not want to study, he has no friends, he does not walk, he plays all the time, sound the alarm and immediately seek help. It could be a symptom of depression!
In your practice, were there examples when gadgets did not interfere with the family, but, on the contrary, helped?
As much as you like. Our 90-year-old neighbor calls her grandchildren and great-grandchildren all day. He teaches poetry with them. Helps with French. Listens to how they play their first pieces on the piano clumsily. If Skype had not been invented, how would she live? And so she is aware of all their affairs. Another case: the son of one of my clients went into a severe teenage crisis, and she switched to written communication, even if they were in the same apartment. Because her “Please do this” in the messenger did not make him as furious as breaking into the room: “Take your mind off your game, look at me and do what I tell you.”
Gadgets greatly simplify communication with teenagers. You can send them whatever you want them to read and they will send back something. It is much easier to control them without intruding. If your daughter does not want you to go to the train station to meet her at night, because she is big and goes with friends, you can send a taxi for her and monitor the car in real time.
Won’t being able to follow make us more anxious?
Again, gadgets are just tools. They will not make us more anxious if we are not anxious by nature.
What other needs, besides communication and the opportunity to be alone, do they satisfy?
It seems to me that the most important thing is that gadgets give the feeling that you are not alone, even if you are alone. It is, if you like, a way to deal with existential anxiety and abandonment. And I can’t even say it’s an illusion. Because modern people have interest clubs, and you and I have colleagues and friends whom we may never see, but feel like close ones. And they come to the rescue, support us, sympathize, they can say: “Yes, I have the same problems” — sometimes this is priceless! Anyone who cares about getting confirmation of his grandiosity will receive it — he will be given likes. Who cares about the intellectual game or emotional saturation, will find them. Gadgets are such a universal tool for knowing yourself and the world.