The Emotional Support Electronic

The Emotional Support Electronic

It’s 1991.

I’m sitting in a psychology class at a Penn State branch campus in Western Pennsylvania. We’re wrapping up a discussion about Phineas Gage and his unintended frontal lobotomy. My mind is racing — the brain, personality, behavior, the sheer wonder of psychology.

Class ends. The professor releases us, and I stuff my notebooks into my Jansport backpack. I fall into step with a few classmates as we head down the hallway toward the lounge before our next class. We’re still talking about what we just learned. Others join in. The group grows.

We talk about weekend plans. Upcoming exams. Whether we should suffer through cafeteria food or drive to the local Burger King for a chicken sandwich instead.

When the day is done, I drive home.

The next day, I return and do it all over again.

Learn. Read. Write. Talk. Laugh.

We bonded over something simple: we were freshmen trying to figure it out together.

It’s 2026.

I’m sitting in the hallway at the college where I work, watching students emerge from their classes.

They are quieter.

Less likely to linger.

Quick to move to their next destination.

Heads down. Eyes locked onto a small glass rectangle in their hands. Thumbing messages. Swiping through algorithmically engineered feeds. Sending filtered photos to maintain digital streaks with people who may not even be in the same room — or state.

The connections are different.

For many students, talking to someone in class feels intimidating. Saying “hi” to someone you don’t know? Almost unthinkable. The hallway — once a place of spontaneous conversation — has become a corridor of avoidance.

So they turn to what I’ve started calling the Emotional Support Electronic.

When I bring this up with students, they don’t argue. They nod.

They tell me they use their device to avoid eye contact. To avoid awkwardness. To avoid the possibility of an unplanned interaction that could spiral into anxiety.

The device isn’t just entertainment.

It’s armor.

The Emotional Support Electronic hasn’t completely replaced human connection — but for some students, it has become the substitute when connection feels too risky.

Now, to be clear, this isn’t every student. Many are forming incredible friendships, building lifelong memories, and creating stories they’ll one day tell their own kids and grandkids.

But for the students who are struggling socially — the ones who already feel unsure of themselves — the ESE isn’t making life easier.

It’s making avoidance easier.

And avoidance, over time, shrinks confidence.

Maybe the work in front of us isn’t to shame devices or glorify the past.

Maybe it’s to teach a skill that used to develop naturally:

Put the device down.
Look someone in the eye.
And say, “Hi, my name is…”

That simple act might be more revolutionary in 2026 than it ever was in 1991.

What Parents & Educators Can Do
If devices are functioning as emotional armor, we can’t just take the armor away. We have to help young people build the social muscle underneath it.

Here are a few starting points:

• Normalize mild social discomfort: Awkward isn’t dangerous. It’s developmental. Growth lives in small moments of discomfort.
• Practice micro-interactions: Encourage simple reps: make eye contact, say hello, ask one follow-up question in class, sit next to someone new once a week. Small exposures build confidence.
• Create device-light environments: At dinner. In classrooms. In youth groups. Even 30–60 minutes of structured device-free time increases the likelihood of real conversation.
• Model it: If adults are constantly glancing at their phones while talking, we unintentionally validate avoidance. Eye contact is contagious.
• Teach conversation as a skill: We teach writing. We teach math. Why not teach how to introduce yourself? How to disagree respectfully? How to join a group?
• Celebrate courage, not charisma: The goal isn’t to turn every student into an extrovert. It’s to help the anxious student take one brave step forward.

The device isn’t the villain.

Avoidance is.

And avoidance can be unlearned.

If you’d like to go deeper into the broader research on how phone-based childhood is reshaping development, I recommend reading Jonathan Haidt’s work on Substack at After Babel.

His writing explores how smartphones, social media, and cultural shifts are influencing anxiety, loneliness, and social fragmentation in this generation.

As always, let’s keep shaping the sky.

~ Ryan