A leading child mental health authority has today warned that technology is threatening child development by disrupting the crucial learning relationship between adults and children.
Peter Fonagy, professor of Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Developmental Science at UCL, who has published more than 500 scientific papers and 19 books, warns that the digital world is reducing the contact time between the generations – a development with potentially damaging consequences.
Fonagy, the chief executive of the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families – a mental health charity – has spent more than half a century studying child development.
“My impression is that young people have less face-to-face contact with older people than they once used to. The socialising agent for a young person is another young person, and that’s not what the brain is designed for.” Fonagy said.
“It is designed for a young person to be socialised and supported in their development by an older person. Families have fewer meals together as people spend more time with friends on the internet. The digital is not so much the problem – it’s what the digital pushes out.”
Fonagy said that the looser connection between children and adults had been happening since the second world war, but the shift had become more pronounced in recent years.
“We tell them to get into a good university or their life is hardly worth living. We tell them, ‘it’s all up to you’. But we’re not giving them a choice.
“We’re not saying ‘let’s look at a number of career choices you could have or what would you enjoy’. It’s a difficult time for kids. We don’t appreciate it as much as we should. We should equip them better to be more resilient to the environment that they are under.”
