Family Life Around Screens: Some Thoughts on the Impact of ICTs on Psychological Development and the Development of Relationships

Abstract

ICTs mediate family life even before children are born, from the moment that future parents post their foetus’s ultrasound image on social media. Based on theories and research on the impact of ICTs on psychological development and the development of relationships, this paper attempts to outline the new mediated context within which today’s children are born and grow. The discussion is set around two main properties of ICTs, closely interwoven with the everyday life of children and their families: (i) the oversupply of (globally) pre-constructed homogeneous images and information diffused by all kinds of screens, which occupy mental space and often surpass the child’s cognitive and emotional capacity to handle, and (ii) the new form of mediated relationships promoted by ICTs, where the other is physically absent. The discussion is focused on the impact that ICTs instill on emotional and cognitive development, and the development of relationships.