A recent ‘Letter to the Editor’ to MDEdge from a Maine Pediatrician reminds us that our use of technology that consumes so much of our attention is indeed taking a toll on our human interactions. Dr Willkoff describes two scenarios that troubled him but, as he points out, may also be so ubiquitous that perhaps too many of us accept these as the norm. In one scenario, a family is dining at a restaurant but the two teens were immersed texting with their smartphones and little else. The other vignette described a 3-year old playing with his toys in the sand and his father nearby was solidly ‘glued’ to his laptop and hadn’t said a word to his child.

These vignettes describe what is called “technoference,” a word coined by a doctoral student in human development and family studies at Penn State a decade ago “to describe the everyday intrusions and interruptions in couple interactions that take place due to technology devices and their always-on, ever-present nature.” Although, the original research that triggered the coinage was studying couples, clearly this phenomenon occurs whenever people of any age are together in social situations.

Recent Studies in Early Childhood and Adolescence

Early Childhood Studies

Dr W points out that “technoference in recent studies has been associated with decreased parent-child interaction during early childhood” including a reduced ability to notice and attend to children’s needs, less frequent and lower-quality joint play and conversational interactions, including more negative responses to children’s behavior, and higher risk of child injuries.

Adolescent Studies

In adolescence, adolescent-perceived parental technoference is associated with higher levels of parent-child conflict and lower levels of parental emotional support and warmth. When children’s emotional and physical needs are consistently ignored or inappropriately responded to, they are at risk of developing mental health difficulties, underscoring the need to investigate parental technoference as a potential precipitant of the development of mental health difficulties, such as depression, anxiety, hyperactivity, and inattention.

New JAMA Study

A recent study in JAMA Open Network Pediatrics (A Deneault, et al.) highlights the limitations of these previous studies of technoference in both children and adolescents in that this body of research has been primarily cross-sectional, which hinders the ability to understand the directionality of associations (ie, which comes first, parental technoference or child mental health difficulties?)

A. Deneault and colleagues studied over 1300 emerging adolescents aged 9 to 11 years across 3 assessments (anxiety, attention difficulties and hyperactivity) revealing that higher levels of anxiety symptoms were associated with higher levels of perceived parental technoference later in development. Higher levels of perceived parental technoference were associated with higher levels of inattention and hyperactivity symptoms later in development.

Meaning of Results:  Parent digital technology use that interrupts routine parent-adolescent interactions may be instigated by the emerging adolescents’ levels of anxiety, and parent technoference may also have consequences for emerging adolescents’ inattention and hyperactivity.

Conclusions and Relevance  

Higher levels of emerging adolescent anxiety symptoms were associated with higher levels of perceived parental technoference (but not vice versa). Higher levels of perceived parental technoference were associated with higher levels of emerging adolescent inattention and hyperactivity symptoms (but not vice versa). Substantial gender differences were not identified. It is possible that, despite experiencing different levels and onset of mental health difficulties, boys and girls similarly experience the effects of parental technoference.

This study highlights the complex relations between parental technoference and emerging adolescents’ mental health and highlights the need to address parental technology use when considering emerging adolescents’ well-being. The findings speak to the need to discuss digital technology use and mental health with parents and emerging adolescents as a part of routine care.

Citations

Deneault A, Plamondon A, Neville RD, et al. Perceived Parental Distraction by Technology and Mental Health Among Emerging Adolescents. JAMA Netw Open. 2024;7(8):e2428261. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.28261
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2822421

Wilkoff WG. Technoference. MDEdge. Pediatric News. Sept 2024.Available at :https://www.mdedge.com/pediatrics/article/270630/mental-health/technoference