Life in the Digital Age
A Brave new World
A lot's changed in a few decades. My parents didn't have much experience of life after the digital age began. My two teenage daughters have no real experience of life before it started. Born a generation in between, I've had the fortune to know both. I'm lucky to have an appreciation for what technology affords us and a recognition of what it can cost.
I'm not an anti-technology person. I love my iPhone, my laptop, and my Kindle. I am, however, curious about the intersection between technology, culture, and relationship. I'm passionate about helping others maintain what's most human in them in this rapidly changing world.
Over the last two decades, my clients have taught me a lot about the impact of technology on their lives. While most love what this boom has given them, there are some consistent struggles that individuals, couples, and families have shared with me over the years.
Out of Balance
The number one concern clients bring to me about technology is that their lives feel out of balance. Few want to get rid of their devices, they just want to feel more in control of how they use them. Increased time spent on screens takes away from time spent with friends, family, nature, or other interests and hobbies. Instant access makes it easy to get lost in a Netflix binge, online gaming, shopping, or social media in ways that were unimaginable before. Hours and days are lost.
Our ability to plug into the office from home makes it easier to lose balance with work as well. Being home or on vacation isn't the refuge it once was. Disconnection from family or partner is only a login away.
Having a constant digital companion makes it difficult to just be with our own thoughts, feelings, and experience. We seek distraction for distraction's sake, forgetting how to be with ourselves. A kind of digital numbing can creep in. Disembodied, more virtual than real, lost in devices or in cyber spaces, the people I work with often come to therapy hoping to find themselves again.
Faulty Connections
While technology has increased the breadth of our connections, people often talk about their struggles with a growing lack of depth in their relationships. As more of our social networks are developed and maintained online, a kind of digital distance can pervade our relationships. Rather than increased intimacy and connection we can become more insulated and isolated from each other.
More time plugged into our devices means less time plugged into each other. Families and couples complain of 'digital siloing.' Screens and earbuds create silos of existence. Even while sitting in the same room with each other, they couldn't feel further apart.
Romance and sex are changing too. While dating apps make finding others easier than ever, romance is becoming more commoditized. What's gained in efficiency, can be lost in authenticity. We shop for romance the way we shop for produce -- constantly searching for what looks to be the most polished and blemish free, quickly discarding anything that isn't perfect or uniform. We forget that it's our blemishes, our differences, and our idiosyncrasies that make us the most human, the most accessible, and the most interesting.
Easy access to sexual images and pornography online is changing the way many learn and think about sex. Individuals and couples come to me with concerns about sexual functioning and relating. Expectations around sex can be distorted by early access online. More comfortable with images and fantasies on screens, real life physical intimacy for some, has become increasingly complicated. People can struggle with sexual compulsivity issues related to online access. People can also end up distancing themselves from their sexual selves in response to these growing cultural/social/realtional impacts.
Family Health and Safety
As new generations grow up with technology, the families I see are increasingly fearful about how to manage the associated risks for their kids and teens. Bullying, stalking, sexting, pornography access, social media and gaming obsessions are worries I hear about frequently.
Increased body image and self esteem issues are a growing concern as well. Kids are bombarded online with images of how they think they ought to look or with lives they think they should be living. In return, they work hard to post 'perfect' images of themselves and their lives online, ultimately finding they don't quite measure up.
Branding, once a task left to corporations like Nike or Apple, has taken on new importance for today's kids. One's social brand, painstakingly developed on social media profiles, is becoming an essential part of teen identity. This creates more opportunities than ever before for comparison, ranking, self evaluation, and ultimately social rejection.
In the end, parents struggle. Either unaware of the impact of their kids' growing obsession with devices and social media or ill-equiped to intervene; they come to therapy looking for answers and support.
awareness, intention, conversation, and choice
If you are dealing with issues around balance, connection, or safety in this digital age I can help. Help starts with being more aware of your relationship with technology. Are you living the kind of life you want to live or do you find yourself on autopilot, seduced by screens instead of using them to your benefit? I invite people to be clearer about what they value in life, about what's important to them, and then practice living with that intention. With this in mind, we quickly discover the ways our technology controls us. We can then make more deliberate choices for ourselves, in our relationships, or with our families in order to find balance again.
Simply prohibiting or limiting screen time isn't enough to give our kids what they need to live healthy lives in the digital age. Families need to talk about the role technology plays. There needs to be conversations about real dangers online -- issues of safety, privacy, and responsibility as our unbounded access to the internet comes with risks our kids may not know or understand.
In addition, we need to instill the values that are important to us through dialogue and modeling. We need to engage in discussions about what constitutes a full and rich life -- one that is balanced, emotionally connected to others, and safe. Parents need to demonstrate this with their own screen behaviors. They need to set expectations and create family habits/life choices that show all that life has to offer. I can help you clarify what's important to you in this regard and help you make this a reality in your day to day life.
How can I help? Schedule your first session or set up a free phone consultation.