There was no interaction between any of them as they were all wired in.
I have written about it before that even when speaking to each other directly, they tend to look over the should of the other person, not at the eyes.
This whole scenario was depressing. Kids need to play, exercise and interact with others, but we saw none of that.
I believe this leads onto depression later in life too. Lots of twentysomethings who should be having the best time of their lives, sitting alone in front of a screen, pretending they are living.
This type of behavior I lay at the feet of parents. It seems that just as long as the kid is busy and not disturbing their parents, then the parents are fine with this.
It gives the parents time not to have to be with the kids, so then they can consume their adult stuff.
When all is said and done so many things that make us human will have gone the way of black and white televisions.
But I wonder - what will be a valued skill in the future? Are the kids building them now? I don't think so, as they are a consumer generation, not a generative generation.
Cognitive empathy is the ability one has to identify and understand other people's emotions.
Without people interacting with one another, this one social skill of the many that should be manifested through interaction, is impossible to develop.
This is a whole other thing too. When they consume from the screens, what they are seeing is a characterization of behavior, but miss the subtlety and nuance to actually read reality. Unless it is spelled out to them, they have no idea what is going on - which leads to all kinds of system failures.
Interacting with others is a skill that takes years to develop, and still some people have yet to master them.
For most people, talking comes easy, but listening is difficult and requires a certain amount of attention.
It's almost as if people are afraid to make eye contact these days and being a good listener requires skills that seem to have vanished into the abyss.
I taught special education for 30 years. When I first started the students I taught were classified as Socially Maladjusted, not a very flattering term but it hit the nail on the head. Most of the children came from very dysfunctional families. One of the best books that I ever used to teach social skills was this book.
It included social skills like, Learning to Accept No For an Answer, learning how To Great Someone, just to name a few.
We would role play these skills and it was a wonderful sight to see these kids learn how to interact and behave properly in the company of others.
These skills are of such importance, now mor than ever, that they should be incorporated into every educational curriculum at every level.