Comment by jader201
7 days ago
This is true, to an extent, but one missing variable is peers, and the — sometimes outsized — influence they have relative to parents.
Some parents limit screen time and delay giving their children phones, but if their peers all have phones and spend much of their time on screens, the parents’ influence may lose out.
In your example, if the friends that came over pulled out their phones and spent most of their time on the phones, the others would eventually follow suit.
And, of course, the reverse is often true — if friends are sitting around talking/interacting, it can sometimes get the others off their screens.
But I’ve also seen many cases, unfortunately, where this wasn’t the case — even though many are interacting, they’ll still keep their face in their screen.
This is often true in adults, too.
Peer groups sort themselves to an extent. It's never everyone that does X or is into Y.
I recall being immediately out when one of the boys asked which football team I support, to which I replied "none". So I got sorted to the much smaller group of kids who are not into that and we had our own common interests to bond over.
Looking at my daughter's social circle it starts as early as in preschool.