I feel a distinct drain in the social energy when some of the people present have their eyes glued to their phones. It would actually be better if they weren't even there.
I think that feeling of draining comes from the fact that if you do want something from them, like asking what they're ordering for food, or if we should go to another venue, you have to put in more effort. They need to do a context switch in which they look at you blankly while you bring them up to speed on what is happening.
Watching your parents turn into smartphone zombies should be a warning sign, maybe even something to rebel against.
Unfortunately children do tend to pick up their parents' behaviors, bad and good.
It's like the people who willingly pay $15/mo for World of Warcraft and wonder why the game doesn't get any better, play for one hour and then watch Asmongold for 8 hours (I love Asmon btw).
Stop doing the things that hurt you.
However if you previously and stopped watching and the conversation comes up you don't have have the up to date information to connect in to the conversation.
So because your part of the community by whatever feed you feel part of the community. The fear of not being part, subconsciously is what drives you to keep up the habit.
Same goes for all, communities, fandoms, cults; toxic or not.
For three hours in the evening 5 days a week plus ~12 hours on weekends at least half of watching kids is almost as engaging as staring at a wall. Keeping them fed, entertained, alive, and healthy can be fun and engaging like rolling around or story time or singing songs, or if she wants help learning about a toy. But the rest of the time I'm just around while she plays semi-independently to make sure nothing dangerous happens and give her validation when she shows me something she did.
Are we just supposed to sit there and stare at the wall for 20 hours a week? When you try to go phone-free what do you... do?
It goes over many of the issues adjacent to social media usage and how to resolve them, starting with how to understand them.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/How-Raise-Healthy-Gamer-Relationship/...
Media critics: the biggest hypocrites.
Is Substack social media? I don't know. We can't measure (don't know) what percentage of Jon Haidt's audience came from people who heard about his books or saw him on TV appearances. He should have a dashboard showing what audience comes from Reddit, Twitter, Facebook and syndicated news (like Business Insider). Substack is social media in all the ways that matter - it wouldn't exist in the absence of Twitter and Facebook, surely, and syndicated news like Business Insider which would cease to exist in the absence of Twitter too.
This is to say that the reason media critics are hypocrites is because they're really saying, "Anything that amplifies voices or ideas I like is good, especially mine, and everything else is bad." Like yeah, sure Jon Haidt, maybe your opinion about TikTok would be different if you were a successful influencer on it. You would simply say that there are more good things than bad, and that you shouldn't throw the baby away with the bathwater with it, or whatever. Well I think Substack is just a bunch of low effort syndicated opinions, but I have the wisdom to not say we should get rid of it, or that because Substack is stupid, people reading it are stupid. It wouldn't be true, but it would be a vibe.
I'm not sure if anyone is immune to media criticism hypocrisy, even Alexandria Ocasio Cortez criticizes Facebook while in the same breadth spending millions on political advertising on it. What can we do?
I tell them they spend too much time watching videos and playing games and should "branch out" into new hobbies. Do they do this? No.
That is to say, I don't think hypocrisy has anything to do with it.
If they see you watching a YouTube video about circuitry or whatever, are they registering "that's an educational video about circuits" or are they just seeing the YouTube logo and thinking "Wow, $parent watches a lot of YouTube"?
Any kid is just going to register that you spend 10 (or whatever) hours a day on the computer, they aren't going to be categorizing your use into educational or not.
One unintended consequence I noticed already with time-limiting YT, is the kid is carefully planning her YT viewing usage and ends up not branching out to crafting/educational/etc. videos because she doesn't want to run out of time for the fun stuff. So this ends up unintentionally killing the desired content.
My gut feeling is that setting an example by doing (so like what you described) and occasionally recruiting the kid for assisting (but not forcing them to participate too much) is the right way forward. We'll see I guess...
In case it isn't, you're spending all your time on screens and not being present with your kids.
You're parenting by example that screen time is more important than family time.
Why would they listen to you when, to them, it probably seems like you're telling them to do what you won't?
And, the trouble is: Most of these adults are addicted to their smartphones and social media, too. Everyone is. I go to birthday parties with my kid, and sporting events, indoors and outdoors, and other kid activities, and the kids are for the most part jumping around having a ball, while the adults are huddled up by themselves, bathed in smartphone light, scrolling through their feeds getting their fix. Don't think this doesn't leave an impression on kids--it does.