Last Tuesday, I sat in a session with a mother who couldn't understand why her 13 year-old son was glued to his tablet "I've tried everything," she said, "Time limits. Reward systems. Even taking it away entirely." "Between my two jobs and his dad's night shifts, sometimes days go by where we barely speak properly”. And therein lies the real problem. As a psychotherapist and mental health nurse who's spent 3 decades working with parents and families, whether it’s in CAMHS, or with parents, I've watched a familiar pattern emerge. We're quick to blame technology for our disconnection, when technology is merely filling the spaces we can no longer occupy ourselves, and often the main way in which young people are connecting with their own community.
British culture has long valued the stiff upper lip approach to raising children. We push for independence remarkably early, sleep training from infancy, self-soothing through distress, solving problems without ‘bothering’ adults. We celebrate the child who plays contentedly alone. Yet our nervous systems tell a different story. We’re fundamentally wired for co-regulation and connection- where one person's calm presence helps another find their equilibrium. Our bodies literally need other bodies to feel safe. When we push children toward premature independence, we're swimming against the biological current. Is it any wonder they seek connection wherever they can find it - including through a screen?
I think it’s time to be brutally honest about what late-stage capitalism has done to family life. The current economic system doesn't just make connection difficult - it makes it nearly impossible for many families. Long gone are the days when a single average income could support a household. Now, both parents typically work full-time just to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. It isn't luxury living - it's basic survival.
I work with parents across the economic spectrum, and the story is depressingly consistent. The normalisation of this arrangement is perhaps the most insidious aspect. We've collectively accepted that parents should miss bedtimes, work weekends, and sacrifice family meals at the altar of economic necessity. Then we wonder why everyone's glued to their phones during the precious moments they do have together.
When you're exhausted from working 40 plus hours a week just to make ends meet, the quality of attention you can offer is fundamentally compromised. Not a personal failing - it's the predictable outcome of an economic system that extracts maximum productivity while returning minimum security.
‘It's like we collectively agreed to pretend it never happened’ a client told me recently about the pandemic. This cultural amnesia is particularly damaging. Children who experienced lockdowns during crucial developmental windows are now navigating complex social landscapes without having built the foundational skills normally acquired through years of face-to-face interaction. Meanwhile, adults carry their own unprocessed trauma - the anxiety of those early days, the grief of losses, both concrete and abstract. This trauma lives in our bodies, making us less available for connection even when physically present. I see the effects daily.
The cost-of-living crisis has turned what was already difficult into something truly untenable for many families. And now with further cuts to those already struggling, particularly the neurodivergent families with hidden disabilities. A father I work with recently described his daily routine: ‘Up at 5am, home at 7pm, then an hour of emails before I can even think about being present with my kids. By then, I'm running on fumes’. His situation isn't unique. With housing costs soaring and real wages stagnating, parents face impossible situations. Work enough hours to provide materially for your family, or be present enough to provide emotionally.
When you're worrying about paying the rent, the part of your brain responsible for attunement and connection, your prefrontal cortex- is effectively offline, hijacked by survival concerns. This isn't poor parenting; it's a physiological reality.
The recent benefit cuts have only tightened this vise for vulnerable families. I've sat with parents declared ‘fit for work’ despite serious health conditions, forced to prioritise survival over connection.
Against this backdrop, digital technology becomes not the problem but the predictable solution to a connection deficit. Screens offer what's increasingly scarce in physical reality: consistent attention, immediate feedback, and a sense of belonging. Online communities don't require parents to take time off work. Video games don't need you to be emotionally regulated before engaging. Social media responds instantly, without the exhausted ‘not now’ of an overwhelmed parent. This isn't to absolve technology companies of responsibility for designing deliberately addictive products. But focusing exclusively on screen time without addressing why screens have become so appealing misses the wood for the trees.
The most pernicious aspect of our current narrative is how it places responsibility squarely on individual families. Just manage screen time better. Just be more present. Just find work-life balance.
These ‘justs’ ignore the structural forces at play. How can a single parent working multiple jobs ‘just’ be more present? How can families ‘just’ find balance when housing and living costs require both parents to work full-time?
Moving forward requires systemic changes that support human connection, Workplace policies that genuinely respect family time - not just lip service to ‘flexibility’.Economic systems that ensure basic needs are met without exhausting labour. Educational approaches that value relationship-building alongside academic achievement. Community structures that facilitate intergenerational connection. It requires questioning a political agenda fixated on economic growth while our social infrastructure crumbles.
This is the antidote to our disconnection crisis - not fewer screens, but more moments of genuine attunement. Not stricter limits, but richer alternatives. Not independent children, but interdependent communities.
The evidence is clear: toxic individualism promised freedom but delivered isolation. Our children's retreat into digital worlds isn't a technology problem - it's a canary in the coal mine, signalling the failure of systems that prioritise productivity over people.
If we truly want to address the digital dilemma, we must first rebuild a society where connection isn't just possible but inevitable - where it's woven into the very fabric of how we live, work, and care for one another. This means challenging the fundamental assumption that economic growth should come at the expense of human relationships.
Because screens aren't stealing our children - capitalism is.
Omg Alice! I couldn’t love every word of this more 👏🏻
The overuse of “just” in parenting advice reveals so much about how we’ve privatized what are, at heart, collective challenges. It puts an impossible burden on families, especially mothers, and quietly implies that struggling is a personal failure instead of a systemic issue. We can’t “just” will our way to balance in a culture that doesn’t support caregiving, undervalues domestic labor, and makes presence a privilege. Thank you for pointing in the right direction.