Some residents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have complained that technology was responsible for the gradual loss of family bonds.
The respondents, who spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday, noted that while technology has made life easier in certain aspects, it has contributed to the loss of family values.
Technology includes forms of digital and media hardware and software such as television, phones, networking platforms especially social media.
Some parents admitted that it was a struggle to keep up with group family activities without every member of the family distracted by their phones.
Meanwhile, others decried the decreasing rate at which children played in the open and engaged in physical recreational activities.
Mrs Bamidele Adejugbagbe, a mother of three, said, “I cannot even pretend that it is not an issue. Technology has done some harm to the family unit.
“These days, it is hard to get everyone to concentrate on the same thing at the same time.
“While you are talking, someone is on the phone or playing a video game. It’s like we are all busy having fun but now in units, and not as a group.”
For Mr Pius Oyubu, the main issue is that technology has created a false sense of connection for families while actively killing the bond.
He said, “These days, families have WhatsApp groups and chat rooms. They follow each other on social media and that is most times where it ends.
“These people might not talk as much in real life but they feel the communication vacuum has been bridged by the scanty WhatsApp group conversation.”
Similarly, Emmanuel Akindele, a 28-year-old banker, admitted that he rarely feels the need to see his family physically as they communicate regularly online.
He and some other respondents in his age range told NAN that they subconsciously found themselves toying with their phones at family functions and distracted most of the time.
He said, “I hear that in our parent’s days, people made it a point of duty to sit in the evenings and have conversations, share stories and teach life lessons.
“Now, I can’t remember the last time I had a lengthy conversation with my parents in person.
“Things are just dropped in the family group chat and there is this sense that you can always call the person so there is no need to have physical conversations.
“With this, coupled with the fact that we are always pressing our phones, even when nothing interesting is happening in it, are signs that we are losing family values,” Akindele said.
However, some respondents slightly disagree. They noted that while technology might have hastened the process, pressure of the society were responsible for the gradual loss in family bond.
Miss Onyinye Okoye said, “I don’t really think its technology. Societies change and now we are becoming more suspicious so we don’t let children play outside.
“Also, the economic downturn in. the world has led people to work harder than before, thereby spending more time away from their families in order to provide.
“These things have a way of reducing the familiarity and bond as families have begun to spend less time together.”
Julius Omokhodion shared a similar opinion. He stated that technology had in some way, helped keep the little family bond left, intact.
According to him, the world is too fast-paced for families to spend the amount of time they used to spend together.
He added that technology had helped families connect even when they could not see physically.
