Too much screen time
Teen gorilla gets screen ban – because he prefers to watch smartphone videos than his peers
Lincoln Park Zoo’s gorilla enclosure
© Lincoln Park Zoo / PR
Too much screen time is not only a problem for human teenagers. A growing ape in Chicago is so fascinated by the screens that the zoo has had to take action.
Distancing oneself, finding one’s position in the family and society and sometimes getting into arguments with others: the teenage age is not an easy time for everyone involved. Neither do gorillas. A growing specimen at the Chicago Zoo now has a problem that human parents know only too well: It is so transfixed by smartphones that it sometimes no longer really takes in the world around it.
For Amare, as the 16-year-old gorilla was called, this led to dangerous situations. When another male gorilla aggressively ran towards him recently as a show of dominance, Amare didn’t notice. He was watching videos on a smartphone. “He seemed quite surprised,” Stephen Ross, who runs the zoo’s monkey center, told the Chicago Suntimes. “He was so distracted he didn’t even realize it.” Luckily, the incident went smoothly.
screen ban
Nevertheless, Amare’s great interest in smartphones is becoming a problem for the monkey. Of course, he doesn’t have his own device around the enclosure: he stares at the visitors’ screens. Because they quickly notice that he jumps at the videos and photos shown to him, they continue enthusiastically and enjoy the reaction. “It’s probably self-reinforcing,” Ross explains. “The more people show him the device, the greater his interest. And the more visitors want to interact with him.”
There’s a simple explanation why Amare of all people seems to be so drawn to the glowing screens: he has long preferred the corner of the glass enclosure that viewers can get closest to. And it’s so easy, particularly common in the vicinity of smartphone displays. “We see that he spends more time on it. And it changes his behavior as well.”
The content itself is less important. “It’s more a question of quantity, not quality,” Ross explains his concern. Most viewers would show him selfies, vacation shots, or pets. What is currently stored on the device. “We just don’t want him staring at screens for hours.”
teenage problems
The zoo has now decided to take action. The distance between the visitors and the pane of the enclosure was increased with a ribbon. When the keepers observe visitors showing their smartphones to Amare, they point out the problems this causes. And hope for insight.
How harmful the screens actually are for the development of the gorilla teenager, Ross can not answer. “But it’s conceivable and that’s why we want to stop it right away.” Amare lives separately from the main group and their alpha male with three other adolescent males. “It’s a bit like a dorm,” jokes Ross. The young males would play a lot together, but also compete for their place in the group. If one of them is then distracted all the time, it could be left behind in its development, so the fear goes.
Working with the monkeys would remind him a lot of raising his own teenagers at home, Ross grins. “Sometimes you have to set limits for them, even if you really don’t want to interfere too much with their development. After all, it’s not helpful to just let them sit in front of the television. Then you just have to send them outside.”
Source:Chicago Suntimes