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Charley, age 13, frequently falls out and 鈥榝alls back in鈥� with Deana. Often, the reasons for the conflict are unclear 鈥� it鈥檚 confusing. When they fall out 鈥榠n real life鈥� (IRL), it鈥檚 usual for Deana also to 鈥榰nfriend鈥� Charley on the social media sites they both use (Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook). In other words, Deana clicks an online button to signal, very visibly, that she and Charley are no longer friends; in one swift digital action, she deletes Charley as an online contact.

Typically, Charley then sends a new online friend request to Deana 鈥� a first step in reconciliation, a kind of digital olive branch. Deana accepts the friend request, and gradually, both on- and offline, they repair the rupture to their friendship. But this time, Charley has had enough. 鈥楧eana unfriends me all the time. I don鈥檛 know why she does that. This time, I鈥檓 not friending her first. She can add me if she wants, but I鈥檓 not chasing around after her.鈥�

Charley and Deana鈥檚 story highlights some of the ways in which technologies that allow us to stay connected on the move are fundamentally changing how we 鈥榙o鈥� relationships. In this article, I want to consider some of the implications of these changes for children and young people鈥檚 social and emotional development. What does it mean to be constantly connected to others, having experiences of digitally mediated relationships that are 鈥榓lways on, and always on you鈥�¹ 鈥� and how can we as therapists help children and young people to make sense of them?

Ubiquitous relating 鈥� relationships on tap

Technologist Mark Weiser coined the term 鈥榰biquitous computing鈥� in the late 1980s to describe interactions with computers that could happen anytime and everywhere.² At that moment in history, the idea that a large proportion of the world鈥檚 population would eventually have powerful computational devices in our pockets, bags and on our wrists was still pretty radical. But just 30 years later, carrying mobile, internet-enabled devices is the norm for most of the children and young people I meet through my clinical work in schools. Smartphones and tablets, coupled with social media apps like Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook, mean that children and young people are able to engage not only in 鈥榰biquitous computing鈥� but also what I call 鈥榰biquitous relating鈥� 鈥� relational 鈥榳ork鈥� that happens everywhere and all the time, even when the people involved are separated in space and time.

In one sense, this idea of relationships being ubiquitous isn鈥檛 new. For around a century, psychological theories of聽various flavours have recognised that we carry our relationships around with us internally, whether in our internal objects or internal working models (psychodynamic/object relations theories), through our self-image (humanistic psychology) and locus of control (personality psychology), or via our core beliefs and rules for living (cognitive behavioural therapy).

But the rise of the internet and mobile digital devices mean that it鈥檚 not just our internal representations of relationships that come with us everywhere. In the 21st century, we now have real-time and constant access to our outside-of-ourselves, 鈥業RL鈥� connections. Our gadgets keep us relationally available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, not only to the people who mean the most to us, but also to peers, colleagues, and more distant acquaintances 鈥� even to total strangers.

Young people tell me that this can be exhausting, and that it can feel impossible to ignore the 鈥榩ing鈥� of incoming social media notifications, which inevitably leave them wondering Who wants me, and what for?. Surveys consistently find that young people report missing out on sleep because of these 鈥榲irtual impingements鈥�,³ with 20 per cent of young people saying that they wake during the night to check messages on social media.⁴ I鈥檝e found that being able to discuss with young people that this is a very recent change in human experience 鈥� that our minds and bodies evolved to fit a different ecological niche, where relationships were not perpetually switched 鈥榦n鈥� 鈥� can help them to understand why adults get so concerned about young people taking breaks from social media, and particularly about switching off their phones and tablets well before bedtime, or keeping them somewhere other than in their bedrooms overnight.

The internet and the inner working of relationships

The internet allows us, on a large scale, to see the workings of our own and other people鈥檚 relationships in action. On social media platforms like Facebook and Snapchat, we see the minutiae of friendships, family relationships, intimate partnerships, business negotiations and political debates played out in a highly visible way, captured indelibly and indefinitely on public record. Given time, we may forget a Facebook fallout or a spat on Twitter, but the internet won鈥檛.

The language of digitally mediated relationships may tell us something about their depth and quality. On social media, we 鈥榝ollow鈥� people in a way that would look very odd if we did it in the offline world [do watch this 鈥� Ed],⁵ and we can 鈥榩op up to someone鈥� at will, appearing in their digital view whenever we feel like communicating, rather than at a time that鈥檚 mutually convenient. Social media apps allow, encourage and even remind us to perform key relational tasks, like wishing someone happy birthday, acknowledging an anniversary, or giving social strokes. 鈥楲iking鈥� our friends鈥� photos, comments and status updates has become an easy and quick tool for expressing and articulating our friendships, in a space where we may have hundreds of relationships competing for our attention. As researcher Taina Bucher puts it: 鈥榃ith the 鈥渓ike鈥� button, Facebook made paying attention to friends a one-click sentiment.鈥�⁶

Charley and Deana鈥檚 story also highlights that the nature of making and breaking friendship itself has changed in the 21st century. Digital actions like 鈥�(un)friending鈥� suggest that the doing and undoing of friendship has started to become something similar to what linguists would call a speech act 鈥� an action that is performed by making a public declaration (like getting married with 鈥業 do鈥�, or making a commitment with 鈥業 promise鈥�). In the digital age, we can 鈥榓dd鈥� or 鈥榙elete鈥� friends at the click of a button, rather than negotiating their complexities through face-to-face interaction. According to Oxford University Press, 鈥榰nfriend鈥� was word of the year in 2009, and 鈥榰nfriending鈥� is now so common that there are apps that allow users to track who has deleted them from social media sites. Research suggests that around three-quarters of teen Facebook users have deleted people from their friend list, and more than half have blocked friends (that is, used digital sanctions to stop friends from contacting them) from their social networking sites.⁷

All of these changes in the 鈥榙oing鈥� of friendships, which have appeared rapidly in just over a decade, can be useful to articulate in our work with children and young people, especially when the going gets tough for them in their relationships.

Relating as a pastime?

Much of young people鈥檚 relating is now done in digitally mediated ways, although, in my experience, young people tend to report that a large proportion of their online connections are people they also know IRL (that is, they do not have many friends that they relate with exclusively in online spaces). Friendships and other peer relationships move fluidly between offline and online spaces, and staying in digital contact with friends and peers takes up a large proportion of many young people鈥檚 free time.

When I ask children and young people what they do for fun or to relax, often their first answer is that they 鈥榞o on [their] phone鈥�. This phrase means different things to different people: 鈥榞oing on your phone鈥� includes a whole raft of activities, such as playing games, watching videos on YouTube, or films and shows on Netflix, browsing websites, reading digital books, and using creative apps to pursue or develop hobbies online. But for many young people, it seems to stand for digitally mediated聽relating 鈥� explicitly turning their attention towards managing or tending their relationships through their devices, and seeking out digital connections. With the rise of 鈥榞oing on your phone鈥� as a pastime, relating with others seems to have become elevated (or reduced, depending on your perspective) to the status of a hobby.

But perhaps this isn鈥檛 such a new phenomenon for children and young people. Teenagers, in particular, need to learn to be in the company of their peers, and to practise how to be with others of the same age in an intimate way. This is an important part of the work of adolescence, and it is evolutionarily adaptive: without a shift from a focus on family to a focus on peers, young people would never leave their families of origin to go out into the world and explore 鈥� or have children of their own. For those of us who didn鈥檛 grow up constantly connected, it can be easy to dismiss going on your phone as aimless time-wasting. Anyone who has been sucked into mindlessly scrolling through their newsfeed on Twitter or Facebook will recognise how easily this kind of passive, digital grazing can swallow time. But as therapists, I think we also need to recognise how important it is for children and young people to have these opportunities to learn to navigate the social world via their digital connections, and perhaps to help them spot when they are favouring or avoiding one social arena over others.

Sherry Turkle¹ notes how often children and young people in her interview studies spoke about preferring digitally mediated interactions to face-to-face conversations 鈥� often because interactions through their devices felt more controllable then the messy, sometimes stressy business of IRL relating. Bringing these contrasts into young people鈥檚 awareness (without becoming 鈥榩reachy鈥� about the relative value of IRL versus digital interactions) can help our young clients to recognise areas of fluidity and balance for them, as well as areas of stuckness or avoidance.

Sarah Haywood works as a school-based clinician and trainer for Place2Be. She is also a lecturer in Art Psychotherapy at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh.聽

References

1 Turkle S. Alone together: why we expect more from technology and less from each other (3rd edition). New York: Basic Books; 2017.
2 Weiser M. The computer for the twenty-first century. Scientific American 1991; 94鈥�104.
3 Balick A. TMI in the transference LOL: psychoanalytic reflections on Google, social networking, and 鈥榲irtual impingement鈥�. Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society 2012; 17(2): 120鈥�136.
4 #StatusofMind: social media and young people鈥檚 mental health and wellbeing. Young Health Movement and Royal Society for Public Health. [Online.] www.rsph.org.uk/uploads/assets/ uploaded/62be270a-a55f-4719ad668c2ec7a74c2a.pdf (accessed 9 October 2018).
5 Can I be your friend? English National Opera 2011. [Online.] www.youtube. com/watch?v=aDycZH0CA4I (accessed 9 October 2018).
6 Bucher T. The friendship assemblage: investigating programmed sociality on Facebook. Television and New Media 2012; 14(6): 479鈥�493.
7 Gashi L, Knautz K. Unfriending and becoming unfriended on Facebook. In: Knautz K, Baran KS (eds). Facets of Facebook: use and users. Berlin: De Gruyter; 2016 (pp1鈥�44).

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