Parental Smartphone Use and “Bystander Ignorance” on Child Development

In this article, the hampering effects of smartphone use to concurrent face-to-face -interaction have been conceptualized as “Sticky Media Device”, and concern has been raised about parental smartphone use in particular. Why would parental smartphone use as a source of parental distraction differ from for example reading a book or fixing a coffee machine? We explain an aspect of smartphone use that is missing in other activities parents might engage in: the child cannot infer from the parent’s behavior, nor from the device, what type of action the parent is currently performing. By analyzing the affordances of smartphone use and referring to Tomasello's work on imitative learning, we propose that our new concept of “Bystander Ignorance” offers understanding to possible developmental consequences of parental smartphone use. Bystander Ignorance means the unawareness that a person interested in pursuing face-to-face interaction with a smartphone-user has about the aspects of the activity that the smartphone user is currently engaged in. ; Peer reviewed