>Dear Lactnet Friends:
>
>It used to be that papa and mamma and baby made 3; today, in my City, the
>new family constellation is papa, mamma, baby and smartphone.
>
>I feel that smartphones are a barrier to relationship, starting at birth
>with mothers snapping a photograph to post on Facebook of their still wet
>newborn.  I see a family walking with their baby in a stroller, each parent
>on their own smartphone, and no one talking to baby.


Totally agree.  I know this is off topic, but I wanted to respond!

I see this daily. I see babies and toddlers with their mothers and 
fathers on buses, trains and underground. I see the interaction with 
the phone, not the baby.

Such missed opportunities :(

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/04/21/304196338/for-the-childrens-sake-put-down-that-smartphone

http://www.babycentre.co.uk/i/pdfs/Mobile-Mum-trade.pdf

http://coffeebreakscience.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/baby-vs-smartphone/

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/07/papa-dont-text/309385/


It will be very, very difficult to do anything at all about this. 
Sorry to sound so negative. But I think the genie is out of the 
bottle.

The effects of (too much) TV/screen time on young children are 
well-known and have been for years. Nothing has changed. Smartphones 
are worse, 'cos you take 'em with you when you leave the house.

The effect on everyone is pernicious. On Xmas Day, I had to lay the 
law down in our house - all our 3 adult children and their partners 
were sitting looking at their phones in silence. I asked if they 
could all please put them away.  'Cos otherwise, how does anyone talk 
to each other?

The phone companies are recognising the first stirrings of dissent, 
though, and they are fighting back, with this ad which presents 
smartphones as the saviour of the family:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40JfeI7LwP0  I am not convinced!


Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc, tutor, UK


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