There is a moment most parents know and few talk about. The baby lies at the breast or in your arms, and the phone is right there. A quick glance, a message, just a moment. It is human, and it is understandable, especially when you are exhausted. But it is worth understanding what that moment is really about, because it is not about the screen.
A screen is not dangerous in itself. What is at stake is your attention, and your attention is exactly what the baby is built to live on. A newborn cannot make sense of a video. But it reads your face with a precision that surpasses everything else, every small expression, every blink, every smile. When your face turns towards a screen, the baby loses its most important source of information about whether the world is safe. It is not the screen that does something to the baby. It is the absence of your gaze, the same absence as in the still face experiment.
Here two worlds meet, and it is worth saying out loud. Screens are not designed to be neutral. They are built by some of the most talented people in the world to capture and hold human attention, because attention is what earns money. You are not competing against a piece of glass. You are competing against an industry that has made it a science to win the very attention your baby needs most. It is not a weakness in you that it is hard. It is meant to be hard.
For the baby it gains an extra dimension as it grows a little older. From around six months the baby follows the direction of your gaze. It learns what is worth looking at by seeing what you look at. If you often look at a screen, the baby learns, quietly and without words, that the screen is the most important thing in the room. Our attention works also as a pointer. It shows the child where the value of the world lies.
This is not an argument for shame or for doing everything wrong. It is an argument for knowing what is at stake, so the choice is yours and not designed for you. We built BabyPilot from exactly that thought. We do not want an app that wants your attention. We want one that gives it back to your child, and that is therefore built to be put down again.
