Most parents know that too much screen time—whether spent in front of the television, an iPad, or the computer—isn’t good. But they don’t know exactly to what extent.
In a video produced by company Dolmio, it shows exactly how bad technology has affected our everyday lives.
Photo credit: Dolmio
It starts out showing four different families during dinner time. At the tables, each family had a child playing on their iPads, seemingly engrossed at their digital activities.
Photo credit: Dolmio
Slowly, each family starts reassembling the way the dining room looks, switching out paintings, rearranging furnitures.
Meanwhile, the kids continue playing without taking much notice.
Then the family members themselves are replaced with total strangers who then start to sit around the dinner table.
When it was finally time to eat, the children on their tables look up in bewilderment, finally realizing that they had been with strangers the whole time.
Next page find out how tablets and iPads ruin family time
“Family time is important,” the voiceover says. “Let’s not ruin it with tech.”
According to a Mail Online report, the experiment done after studies found that 63% of Australian parents agreed that family arguments at the table stem from technology-use during meals.
Meanwhile, in the UK 67% of parents have found that family arguments start with technology use, and that one in three households has tried unsuccessfully to ban tech while eating.
“Sometimes,” the clip reads before it ends, “we need to disconnect to connect.”
When children play on their tablets and iPads, they completely shut out the world around them. This creates a disconnect during family time. But more than that, it cultivates a bad habit in children which makes them overly dependent on their gadget.
The video was done to encourage families to use meal times in order to bond and connect with each other.