“Where are you?” An observational exploration of parental technoference in public places in the US and Israel

Very absorbed parents tended to be positioned away from their children, to cease to have eye contact with them, and to fail to pay attention to their children's emotional distress, accomplishments, attempts to communicate, and safety.

“Very absorbed parents tended to be positioned away from their children, to cease to have eye contact with them and to fail to pay attention to their children's emotional distress, to their accomplishments, their attempts to communicate, and ultimately also to their safety.”

Children reacted to their parents' absorption in smartphones by expressing frustration or disappointment, avoidance of interaction, or by trying to get their parents' attention through disruptive behaviors.

“Children reacted to their parents’ absorption in their smartphones by expressing frustration or disappointment, avoidance of interaction, or by trying to get their parents’ attention through disruptive behaviors.”

When strongly absorbed in their devices, parents tended to miss children's bids for communication or to be less emotionally supportive and overall to be less sensitive.

“When strongly absorbed in their devices, parents tended to miss children's bids for communication or to be less emotionally supportive (Elias et al., 2020) and overall to be less sensitive (Wolfers et al., 2020).”

The displacement hypothesis implies that time spent on a digital device reduces opportunities to show sensitive parenting and sustain attuned parent-child interactions, which was the case in the study by Elias et al. (2020) in eateries and on playgrounds both in the United States and in Israel.

“With regard to our research question, this hypothesis would imply that time spent on a digital device reduces opportunities to show sensitive parenting and sustain attuned parent–child interactions, which was the case in the study by Elias et al. (2020) in eateries and on playgrounds both in the United States and in Israel.”

Parents' overall well-being as well as personality factors such as introversion or proneness to addictive behaviors may contribute to parental phone use behaviors.

“Maybe parents’ overall well‐being as well as personality factors such as introversion or proneness to addictive behaviors contribute to parental phone use behaviors, too, because both on playgrounds and in restaurants, amount of smartphone‐use time varied greatly between parents (e.g., see Elias et al., 2020; Wolfers et al., 2020).”

Some parents used their smartphones for a considerable amount of time while spending time with their children on playgrounds and in eateries, or reported a high daily technology use time while spending time with their children.

“Some parents used their smartphones for a considerable amount of time while spending time with their children on playgrounds and in eateries (e.g., Elias et al., 2020) or reported a high daily technology use time while spending time with their children (Stockdale et al., 2020).”