Beware of "phubbing"!

The fact that a word has been created for this already shows that this is something that is increasingly affecting and influencing parent-child interaction, so that we paediatricians need to discuss this as a really serious issue, as it is not at all good for children's development.

Two thirds of parents now say that play or communication time with their children is interrupted by digital media. Unfortunately, this is not at all positive for children's emotional development.

The whole thing was investigated by the American developmental psychologist Edward Tronick back in 1978, at that time of course not yet with smartphones. In so-called still-face experiments, parents were asked to communicate intensively with their babies, i.e. to respond to their children with looks, gestures, etc. - and then suddenly freeze their facial expressions. This triggered strong emotions and great anxiety in children. They cried and tried to get their parents' attention again. When the parents responded to the children again, they relaxed again.

Two keywords are important here: parental sensitivity and parental responsiveness. This means that parents should recognise children's needs and respond to them appropriately. And that doesn't happen when I'm distracted by the smartphone.

The fatal thing is that small children and babies can't defend themselves verbally; it's sometimes better with teenagers because they can also talk back. But if teenagers don't dare to do that, it's also very bad for their self-esteem. And of course it also sets a bad example, because young people imitate the behaviour when communicating with their friends.

So we should all take a good look at ourselves and be sensitive in our everyday lives. Phubbing affects us all and it is a serious problem for the emotional development of babies, children and young people that we need to face up to and tackle.