Everyone has different relationships with their families, friends and so much more. Those relationships have strong bonds, happy lives, good times but things may have changed ever since the internet came to people’s lives. The internet has significantly changed how people live, work, and communicate. Somehow gadgets have helped our lives because our parents were able to communicate with us while they’re working. However, these gadgets have affected the family relationships because people were addicted to it. 

    With that, we students logged and recorded the number of hours on each app that were used in a week. This was done before Christmas Eve and our teacher told us to record not only ourselves but also the three of my family members. Which makes us four and I recorded them each day. And here are my observation on how the gadgets affected our family interaction.

Queenie Ledesma	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Ms Teams		4 hours	2 hours	4 hours	2 hours	4 hours
Messenger	1 hr. 40 mins.	20 mins.	30 mins.	1 hour	30 mins.	1 hr 20 mins	2 hours
Instagram	45 mins.	15 mins.	10 mins.	15 mins.		30 mins.	1 hour
Twitter	1 hour	5 mins.	1 min.	5 mins.	3 mins.	1 hour	30 mins.
Facebook		5 mins.			3 mins.	6 mins.	5 mins.
Tiktok	2 hours	30 mins.	35 mins.	1 hour	3 hours	2 hours	1 hour
Games	35 mins.					5 mins.	10 mins.
Microsoft Office Apps	3 hours	3 hrs. 10 mins.	2 hours	1 hour		4 hours	2 hours
Google	4 hours	35 mins.				5 hours	3 hrs. 50 mins.
Family Interaction	1 hour – brunch 30 mins – snack 1 hours – dinner 1 hr. 30 mins. – watching movie	1 hour - dinner	30 mins - dinner	20 mins. - dinner	1 hour – lunch 2 hours – chat with all my family 1 hour - dinner	35 mins. - dinner	30 mins – lunch 3 hours – family game 1 hour – chat with family 30 mins. - dinner
Total Screen Time		66.1 hours		Total Family Interaction		16 hours

Table 1. Queenie’s Screen Time

            As seen in the table above, I logged and recorded my Screen time and how much time I spent on gadgets and how often I interacted with my family. I observed that I spent so much time on Microsoft Office Apps because I was so focused on finishing all of my home works. Also, on the other apps I check on them often too. Which makes my screen time a total of 66.1 hours. Moreover, I also logged how much time I interacted with my family and as seen above in weekdays I only interacted with my family on lunch, dinner, and snack time. On weekends, I interacted with my family by chatting with them and watching movies and we ate meals together too. I totalled how much time I interacted with my family which makes it 16 hours.

May Antonith Ledesma	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Ms Teams		3 hours	2 hours	4  hours	3 hours	3 hours
Messenger	30 mins.	20 mins.	30 mins.	1 hour	30 mins.	1 hr	30 mins
Instagram	10 mins.		5 mins				20 mins.
Facebook	10 mins.	5 mins.			3 mins.		15 mins.
YouTube	2 hours			1 hour		1 hour	2 hours
Family Interaction	1 hour – brunch 30 mins – snack 1 hours – dinner 1 hr. 30 mins. – watching movie	1 hour - dinner	30 mins - dinner	20 mins. - dinner	1 hour – lunch 2 hours – chat with all my family 1 hour - dinner	35 mins. - dinner	30 mins – lunch 3 hours – family game 1 hour – chat with family 30 mins. - dinner
Total Screen Time		27.5 hours		Total Family Interaction		16 hours

 

Table 2. May Antonith’s Screen Time

On my next observation, I logged and recorded my mother’s screen time and how much she interacted with us. In the table above, on weekdays my mother spent more time on the Microsoft Team app because she was helping my little brother do online class. The other app that she spent the most is YouTube it’s because she watches cooking videos to make us delicious dishes. With that, I totalled her screen time which is 27.5 hours. I, then recorded how much time she interacted with us and she has the same as mine. Since my mother does not work, she stays at home spending her time on those social media.

 

Ting Ledesma	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Yahoo	20 mins.	15 mins.			10 mins.	30 mins.	25 mins.
Messenger	15 mins.	35 mins.	1 hour	20 mins.	1 hr. 20 mins.	30 mins.	10 mins.
Facebook	5 hours	2 hours	1 hour	1 hour	3 hours	1 hour	2 hours
YouTube	4 hours 30 mins.	1 hour	1 hour	1hr. 30mins.	2 hours	1 hour	6 hours
Family Interaction	1 hour – lunch 1 hour – dinner 1 hr. 30 mins. – watching movie	20 mins. - lunch	20 mins. - lunch	20 mins. - lunch	30 mins. - dinner	35 mins. - dinner	30 mins – lunch 3 hours – family game 1 hour – chat with family 30 mins. - dinner
Total Screen Time		36.9 hours		Total Family Interaction		9.6 hours

 

Table 3. Ting’s Screen Time

            The third person that I observed is my father. I logged and recorded how much time he spent on Social Medias and with us. In the table, I observed that he spent more of his time in YouTube and more on the weekends. He does not have much app as me because he only download apps that are appropriate for him. Then, I totalled his screen time and he has 36.9 hours. I also logged his interaction with us. On weekdays, he does not have interaction with us only on lunch or dinner because he had to work. However, on weekends he spent time with us more than on weekdays. I, then totalled his interaction time which makes it 9.6 hours.

 

Ethan Ledesma	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Ms Teams		3 hours	2 hours	4  hours	3 hours	3 hours
Games	5 hours	2 hours	1 hour	1 hour	3 hours	1 hour	2 hours
Microsoft Office Apps				.	20 mins.	10 mins.
Youtube	3 hours 30 mins.	1 hour	1 hour	1hr. 30mins.	2 hours	1 hour	5 hours
Family Interaction	1 hour – brunch 30 mins – snack 1 hours – dinner 1 hr. 30 mins. – watching movie	1 hour - dinner	30 mins - dinner	20 mins. - dinner	1 hour – lunch 2 hours – chat with all my family 1 hour - dinner	35 mins. - dinner	30 mins – lunch 3 hours – family game 1 hour – chat with family 30 mins. - dinner
Total Screen Time		45.5 hours		Total Family Interaction		16 hours

 

Table 3. Ethan’s Screen Time

            The last person I observed is my little brother. Since he’s still a little kid he does know much of the apps but only games. As seen above, he spent time on Microsoft Team on the weekdays because he has online classes like me. After classes he also spent his time on games and watching YouTube video games. I totalled his screen time which makes it 45.5 hours I included his weekends screen time too. Moreover, I recorded his family interaction time and me, and my mother, and him have the same interaction time because we stay home all the time.

 

            Overall, I observed that we do spend our time more on our gadgets than having chats or having fun with the family. I must say that we cannot deny that social media is in fact entertaining and very addicting. During this pandemic too, social media kept us away from bore but it also helped us communicate with our friends whom are far away from us. With my observation, we have used social media most on weekdays, we have different number of hours on how we spent time on gadgets. And that made me realize that we do not appreciate the “family time” anymore and we sort of into our phones and more. The addiction we have on gadgets may increase in the near future as technologies evolve and more advanced machines are to be introduce. Therefore, family interaction time will be less important but it can still work if the family chose to do something fun and have time for each other sometime.

        Queenie Ledesma

Philippine Institute of Quezon City, 2021