Holistic Wellness Coach Pax Tandon who specializes in positive psychology to help people navigate life’s challenges gives these five reasons why we should unplug.

1.      Gadgets compel us to multitask constantly, so our attention is constantly divided. Parents don’t focus on their kids, kids notice this, feel neglected, and negative consequences occur: acting out, cries for help, and worse.

2.      Unplugging gives us pause to focus, become mindful, re-claim our power of attention.  Youngsters are particularly at risk for ADD, and our culture of technology only feeds this (see above). We ply them with pharmaceuticals like Ritalin, but we can provide a simpler solution to staving off budding ADD: unplug the technology!

3.      Social interactions and cues play a major role in child and adolescent development. If we want our youngsters’ brains to develop normally, they need as much social interaction as possible. This necessarily means time with each other, not on our gadgets.

4.      Our social intelligence, or the way we relate to others, is one of the key factors to success in work and life (more important than IQ and skill level). This suffers when we don’t have to interact with others face to face-something technology has taken away from us. Unplugging forces us back into normal social situations, where we can practice our people skills, which are essential to our success.

5.      Youngsters may talk like adults, dress like them, emulate them, all much more profound in this technology age when Media is so much more accessible, but they are still kids, desperately needing their parents and families for guidance and support. Going tech-free fosters real communication between parents and children where issues and concerns can be addressed, support given, love and concern shown.