October
17, 2014
Dear
Parents,
Smart
phones are here to stay. Actually, that is not entirely true, for they will
gradually be replaced by more sophisticated tools. But it is true that smart
phones are commonly used these days, even by high school students. This letter
intends to present some ideas regarding the wisdom of that use by teenagers – a
topic of interest to all Heights parents since even those of you with younger
sons know that they will be teenagers soon!
The main
arguments for a teenager having a smart phone seem to be the following: the
phone is a tool for communication with family and friends, it provides parents
with the peace of mind that they can always reach their sons, it is a
convenient tool to coordinate often complicated family schedules, it is the way
of the future so it’s time to accept it, teenagers need to learn how to use it
properly since they will be using it for the rest of their lives, and it has
become increasingly harder to find a non-smart (dumb?) phone.
The first
three arguments only present the case for having any type of phone since they
can all do voice calling and text messaging. It is true that in an age when
parents often have to juggle multiple family member schedules, having instant
access to your children can be beneficial, but a simple phone will accomplish
the goal of allowing you to call or text your son whenever you see fit.
All of us
will increasingly have more technology both encroaching upon and facilitating
our lives. There is, therefore, an argument for seeing smart phones as part of
that trend, a trend that is inevitable and therefore must be accepted. But the
fact that technology will increasingly be part of our lives does not mean that
you ought to have your son fully embrace any new gadget that comes along. It is
your place as parents to decide whether each technological advancement is good
for your son, and whether it is good for the family dynamics. A better TV
system may not be good for your family if you have determined that TV watching
is taking too much time and are looking to do away with it. A portable computer
may not be great for your son if you think that your son is already spending
too much time on the non-portable computer. You should not be afraid of
technology, just cautious and discerning.
I agree
that there is a benefit for a young man to learn how to use current technology
well and properly since he will likely need to use it eventually. This is what
is now called becoming a good digital citizen. The argument for allowing smart
phones while in high school, then is that it is better for the teenager to
learn how to use the phone properly while he is still at home before he
goes to college and is on his own. Of course, the main factor in learning how
to use a smart phone properly is not a technological question, but rather one
of character. The real issue is whether your son is going to be the master of
the phone, or the phone the master of your son.
Learning
how to use the phone properly is then a question of the will, of strength of
character, of discipline, self-control, temperance. So, the way to think about
this argument is to reflect whether your son has the strength of will to master
his phone and thus use it prudently. The phone is a very powerful, imminently
attractive, potentially addictive tool for all of us, but much more so for
teenagers. So, does your son have that strength of character to have a smart
phone and not abuse it? To gauge his strength of character manifested in
self-control and discipline, you may want to consider how he fares in other
areas of his life. How is his material order in his room, bed, clothing,
book-bag, and other personal belongings? How does he manage his own schedule –
is he a procrastinator, or is he diligent in doing what he ought? Does he do
what he wants or what he should? If he does not have the self-control to follow
a schedule and do what he ought, but rather he takes the easy road and mostly
does what he wants, then a smart phone will be at best an endless source of
distraction, procrastination, and will-weakening for him. Does he have
disciplined work-habits? Is he already the kind of disciplined worker you would
eventually like him to be? If he isn’t, then he needs fewer, rather than more,
distractions. How is his sociability? Is he shy about engaging others
face-to-face? Smart phones offer a false heaven to shy people in that they make
it socially less awkward to not engage others in conversation or even to look
at them – it is easier to bury one’s head in a screen and ignore everyone
around. So, while I agree that there is a benefit to having the young man learn
to properly use a smart phone, or similar technology, the real issue is how to
teach proper use. In any case, a pre-requisite for any young man to be able to
control a smart phone is for that young man to be able to control himself. Few
are in that situation, and even those who are, may risk losing ground in their
self-control battle by the accessibility to the phone.
Finally,
it is becoming increasingly harder to buy a regular phone. Well, harder is not
impossible, at least not yet, although maybe we will get to the point when only
certain antique shops will carry regular phones. But the ease of getting the
regular phones is not an important factor to consider since that has nothing to
do with doing the right thing for your son. If getting a smart phone is the
right thing to do, then the ease of getting one is welcome; but if getting a
regular phone is the right thing to do, then the growing difficulty of
obtaining one is an inconvenience, but still a small price to pay for doing
what is right for your son.
So, if
there is no real benefit for your son to have a smart phone, is there any real
harm in his having one? Is getting a smart phone for your son a neutral
proposition? I have already hinted at some potential downfalls, but I will be a
bit more specific in detailing them in no particular order of importance.
First, the
vast majority of teenagers are intemperate. They are at the time in their lives
when they have strong passions and emotions, but only a half-developed will.
Strong passions in a teenager are good since they are a sign that he is alive.
But his will is just developing and therefore still in great need of support.
One of the manifestations of that intemperance due to the natural combination
of strong passions and developing will is that a teenager wants things now. A young boy who
interrupts his parents’ conversations with a question or a request because he
can’t wait for a few minutes, or a young boy who wants to eat now and cannot
wait until dinner time is manifesting his intemperance. And a particularly
strong form of intemperance among teenagers is curiosity. And so, the young man
who must know the score of the sports game now, or who cannot wait to see the
funny video his friends told him about but rather must have his curiosity
satisfied now, is a boy or a young man who is manifesting this form of
intemperance. Actually, we all suffer from this, and thus we have the
curiosity-driven phenomenon of traffic jams due to rubber necking. Smart phones
prey on teenagers’ curiosity by providing them with instant access to whatever
information they want to get or video they want to watch. The smart phone
eliminates the need to wait by promising instant curiosity satisfaction, and so
it may actually weaken your son’s will by catering to the bad habit of seeking
instant gratification.
Second,
the smart phone focuses one’s mind and eyes downward onto the screen rather
than on the world around him. We are becoming a society of people who look
typically down and only exceptionally up and about. New York is sometimes
referred to as the city where you could be loneliest in a crowd. And yet there
is something healthy about a teenager having to break out of his shell to
socialize with those around him in a parking lot, or lounge, or elevator, if
nothing else by making eye contact and recognizing another person’s existence.
Because sociability is best developed at a younger age, the smart phone may
prevent a teenager from developing into a more confident man capable of talking
with those he does not know as well. A smart phone can practically shut down
the world around your son and reduce it to the images on a screen – all of them
at his command. The phone provides entertainment, but deprives of reality, and
a young man can only become social when he is living reality.
Third,
there is the fact that smart phones provide access to everything the web hosts.
As you know, the pornography industry is a multi-billion dollar industry intent
in getting its product into the hands, eyes, minds, and souls of your sons.
Producers know that once that young man, that boy, has been exposed to their
material, that young man is more likely to want to see it again. And that
once he has seen it a few times, he will have a battle to try to stop the habit.
We also know that it is very hard to prevent access to such material, no matter
what filters and other measures we put in place. But there is no doubt that
prevention becomes increasingly difficult with additional potential access to
the material. A smart phone, a highly portable powerful computer, makes this
prevention virtually impossible. Filters, reporting mechanisms to see its use,
parental controls and the like can be installed, and yet there is the cold fact
that the smart phone increases the risk of exposure to pornographic material.
Ultimately, the only safeguard against falling into watching such content is
the viewer’s will and self-control, and unfortunately these are the very
strongholds the smart phone may erode.
In
addition, an invariably bad reason for giving your son a smart phone is his
claim that “everyone has one,” a claim that will become true only if every
parent were to give in to it. Neither is it a good reason to give him a phone
simply because he insists with the intemperate perseverance characteristic of
teenagers. His inability to take no for an answer may best evidence that
he lacks the self-control to handle a smart phone.
The risk
of owning a smart phone clearly becomes less and less worth taking as the
benefit the phone provides diminishes. Your son can hardly argue that he
accrues a real benefit for having a smart phone, one that overcompensates for
the great personal risk he is under when having it. The questionable benefit of
having access to the web for a teenager is dwarfed by the certain risk of
having such access, both because of the potential for intemperance in looking
to satisfy one’s curiosity, and because of the pernicious content that he may
fall into.
Although
it refers to smart phones, this letter has really been about your sons and how
they can use technology in a way that it will not hamper their growth.
Ultimately, the letter is about considering how to empower your sons to become
life-long prudential users of technology by truly mastering it.
Sincerely,
Alvaro J.
de Vicente
Headmaster
The Heights School
