Will We One Day View Mobile Screens Like Smoking?

🎬 What I've Been Watching

Toy Story 5 and a Conversation About Screens

A few weeks ago, Leah and I took the kids to watch Toy Story 5.

Like most parents with young children, I've seen more animated movies than I ever imagined possible, but there is something nostalgic about Toy Story. The original film was released in 1995, when I was still a kid myself, so in many ways it feels as though I've grown up alongside these characters.

What I wasn't expecting was for a children's movie to leave me thinking about technology, parenting, and the future.

Without giving too much away, one of the central themes of the film revolves around a new interactive device that enters a child's life. The older toys, which once occupied the centre of her attention, suddenly find themselves competing against something that is always available, endlessly engaging, and seemingly impossible to ignore.

The more time the child spends with the device, the less time she spends with the toys.

The toys haven't changed.

The child hasn't changed.

The competition has.

As we walked out of the cinema, Leah turned to me and said something that stayed with me.

"This isn't really a movie about toys."

She was right.

It's a movie about attention.

And perhaps that's one of the most valuable and contested resources in modern life.

The conversation continued during the drive home. We found ourselves talking about screens, children, and how dramatically childhood has changed in a relatively short period of time. Somewhere during that discussion, I was reminded of another societal shift I witnessed growing up.

Smoking.

When I was a child in the 1980s and 1990s, smoking was everywhere. People smoked on aeroplanes, in restaurants, in shopping centres, in offices, and in bars. It wasn't unusual because it was normal. Most people rarely questioned it because it was simply part of everyday life.

Over time, however, our understanding changed. Research accumulated. Public opinion shifted. Laws followed. What was once accepted became restricted, and what was once common gradually became unusual.

Today, many younger people struggle to believe that smoking was ever allowed on commercial flights.

As Leah and I talked, I found myself wondering whether screens might one day follow a similar path.

Not because screens are the same as cigarettes.

They aren't.

Technology has transformed our lives in countless positive ways. I work through technology. I communicate through technology. Many of my closest friendships survive because technology makes connection possible across continents and time zones.

The question isn't whether technology is good or bad.

The question is whether we fully understand what it is doing to us.

Or perhaps more importantly, what it is doing to our children.

One observation from Leah particularly resonated with me. She pointed out that watching a movie together is fundamentally different from handing a child a tablet.

A family movie is a shared experience. Everyone watches the same story. Everyone laughs at the same moments. Everyone leaves with something to discuss.

A tablet is different.

A phone is different.

Those experiences are often private.

The interaction takes place between the individual and the device. The content is personalised. The recommendations are personalised. The experience is increasingly tailored to hold attention for as long as possible.

The relationship becomes individual rather than communal.

That distinction feels important.

One of the things I wonder about most is what children lose when boredom disappears.

For most of human history, boredom was unavoidable. Children invented games. They explored. They negotiated friendships. They used their imagination. They learned how to sit with discomfort, solve problems, and entertain themselves.

Today, boredom often lasts only a few seconds before a screen appears.

Perhaps that's progress.

Perhaps it isn't.

I genuinely don't know.

What I do know is that we're living through one of the largest technological shifts in human history, and we're still discovering its consequences in real time.

Maybe future generations will look back and wonder why we handed powerful, personalised devices to children at such young ages.

Maybe they won't.

Maybe our concerns will prove to be overblown.

But I suspect we're still too early in the story to know for certain.

For now, I'm left with a question that a children's movie unexpectedly placed in front of me:

What deserves our attention?

Because whether we're talking about toys, screens, relationships, work, family, or life itself, the answer to that question may shape more of our future than we realise.

☕ Over Coffee

How do you think about screens in your own life or family?

Do you think we'll look back on them differently ten or twenty years from now than we do today?

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Chat laters,

Snoopy