How future relationships or connections might be impacted by seeing the person biologically programmed to focus on you, focusing on a phone instead. I didn’t want my son to remember me as a mum who had her face buried in a phone. I also wanted to understand how this perceived lack of presence could impact him and a future generation of Kiwi kids. Parents spoke to children less, responded more slowly, and showed less emotional sensitivity when a device was present. Wallace says the current generation of parents has been a bit of a “social experiment”, and the results are only starting to play out, but parents need to be far more aware of the impact interruptions with tech have.

Source: New Zealand Herald March 20, 2026 06:03 UTC