The Transitional Phenomena Functions of Smartphones for Adolescents

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe contemporary nonlinear dynamic systems model of development used by psychoanalysts suggests that generalized statements about the impact of cybertechnology on the developing mind are simplistic, naive, and unwise. Once we recognize that environmental factors are only one of many contributors to the developmental process and its outcome, it becomes necessary to be far more circumscribed and specific when studying this issue. Toward that end, one type of technology—the smartphone—and one developmental stage—adolescence—are addressed. It is suggested that smartphones can serve as transitional phenomena that facilitate the internalization of various regulatory functions previously provided by the environment. They can also be misused in a defensively perverse manner to compensate for developmental deficiencies and to defend against the affects aroused by facing those deficiencies. Five regulatory functions internalized during adolescence through using the smartphone as a transitional phenomenon are delineated: (1) narcissistic regulation, (2) drive and affect regulation, (3) superego integration, (4) ego functioning, and (5) self and object representational functioning. Brief clinical examples are provided to describe such usage and to clarify perverse misusage, also.