What's the news?
Enterprise Rent-A-Car is lamenting the demise of family bonding on long car journeys and has presented new research that shows how kids are spending more time on their tablets and phones than talking to each other or their parents, once the car is on the road.
Some 30 per cent of Irish parents with kids under the age of 18 admit that they spend "hours on end" on electronic devices while in the car (and indeed outside of the car, but that's hardly our direct concern here...). According to Enterprise, the average family summer holiday takes in some 612km of driving, which leaves rather a lot of time for Angry Birds, and rather less time these days for chatting and talking.
Even though 26 per cent of parents worry that it could be bad for children's health to play on tablets or phones for long periods in the car, and 25 per cent would prefer to engage more and have conversations, just 15 per cent of parents have become angry with their kids for staying glued to a device as opposed to interacting with others.
"For families heading off on a long drive in the car during the summer, it is not the same as 20 or even ten years ago," says George O'Connor, Managing Director of Enterprise Rent-A-Car Ireland. "With the emergence of mobile technology, you're simply not comparing like with like and most parents accept that devices are part of the journey now. However, the research suggests that a lot of parents are maybe losing the battle to get their kids off the devices and interacting with others," O'Connor said. "Thirty per cent of our survey respondents admit their kids stay too long on their devices but only 15 per cent say they've been angry as a result. It seems that for the sake of a quiet life, we are letting our kids win that battle."
The research says that the favoured activities on a car journey are playing games on a phone or tablet (45 per cent) or watching movies on the same device (38 per cent). A mere 24 per cent of parents say that they still play traditional in-car games such as i-spy with their kids. As a result, 28% of parents with kids under 18 totally control their kids' tablets and oversee downloading what their children use, and a further 26% check the games their children download to make sure that they are suitable. Just 17% say that their children can use the tablet however they like.
Of course, it doesn't help that we're lying to them. A full 51 per cent of parents admitted that they fib about the length of time a journey is going to take. Are we there yet, indeed.