From parents’ chat to fights, how to understand when it’s time to disconnect
In the digital age we find ourselves in, parents’ WhatsApp groups have taken on a role that, quite frankly, seems to have crossed the line of common sense. To tell the truth, we have reached a dead end, where the word “communication” has lost all original meaning, overwhelmed by an avalanche of messages, emojis, and alerts that seem more like a bombardment than a useful exchange of information.
Violence
The drama of the mothers in Scampia, which made the rounds on the news, is only the most grotesque episode of an infinite series of digital misadventures that afflict groups of parents, who have now transformed into real gladiatorial arenas. An argument on a chat turned into a fight. The underlying cause? An explosive mixture of collective paranoia, senseless competition, and an unbridled race for digital recognition, where every parent wants to prove that they are the most attentive, the most informed, the most… everything.
Competition between parents
These dynamics fuel a vicious cycle of anxiety and inadequacy, pushing parents into a sort of perpetual competition, which has little or nothing to do with the actual well-being of children. Instead, they look more like chapters from a manual on “How to Raise Anxious and Insecure Adults.” Children, silent observers of these tragicomic representations, soon learn that their value is measured in terms of performance, visibility and social approval, a lesson that, undoubtedly, they could do without learning.
We are disconnected from who matters
In the midst of this human comedy, genuine relationships, those made of glances, of words exchanged in the silence of an embrace, of laughter shared without the mediation of a screen, risk becoming an endangered species. It’s paradoxical: in the frantic search for connection, we have disconnected ourselves from what really matters.
Time to disconnect
The solution? Maybe it’s time to hit the “pause” button. To take back the reins of our digital life and honestly ask ourselves if it’s worth it. The revolutionary proposal is as simple as it is shocking: disconnect. Yes, you read that correctly. Detach. Because before the advent of WhatsApp and social networks, relationships still existed, and dare I say, they were even more authentic.
Imagine a world where parents talk to each other in person, where decisions are made looking into each other’s eyes and not through the cold screen of a smartphone. A world in which children grow up learning the value of presence, listening, empathy, rather than managing notification anxiety. It seems like utopia, yet it could be our reality, if only we decided to take a step back.
Let’s go back to human relationships
Rediscovering the pleasure of human relationships, freeing yourself from the slavery of notifications, regaining the time to dedicate to what really matters: these are the steps for a return to normality. A normality in which being a parent means first of all being present, not with a like, but with a hug, not with a message, but with a word said looking into each other’s eyes. Here, perhaps, the time has come to restart our internal devices and choose a different path. Maybe it’s time to really switch off.
Giuseppe Lavenia, psychologist and psychotherapist, is president of the National Association of Technological Addictions, GAP and Cyberbullying “Di.Te” and professor of Work and Organizational Psychology at the Polytechnic University of Marche
