Key points

• Face‑to‑face communication forms valuable neurobiological and psychological connections.
• Mutual imitation engages mirror‑neuron‑related networks that help infants develop social connections.
• Through ongoing repeated, reciprocal personal engagement, infants begin to recognize others.
• Families can make choices that will support empathic learning and strengthen connectivity.

Individual development and family rituals begin in the family’s communication crucible, where infants first encounter the external world through face-to-face interaction. These immediate personal exchanges, involving eye contact and the first sounds of conversational speech, begin to form the core neurobiological and social foundations of attachment, early social cognition, and emotional development (Farroni et al., 2002; Trevarthen & Aitken, 2001; Feldman, 2007).

Trevarthen’s work on primary intersubjectivity (defined as the newborn’s innate capacity for face‑to‑face, emotionally attuned communication) shows that infants are equipped from the first days of life to see, and they also try to understand the world (Trevarthen & Aitken, 2001; Trevarthen, 2011; Galanaki, 2023). This shapes the brain’s emerging neurological potential, laying the earliest framework for prospective cognitive and emotional development.

These personal encounters that involve direct, multisensory, face‑to‑face exchanges that engage the infant’s visual, auditory, motor, and affective systems activate and strengthen all manner of neural circuits in the brain. The visual cortex, for example, processes the caregiver’s face and emotional expressions (Farroni et al., 2002); the superior temporal gyrus and early Wernicke‑related regions analyse the rhythm and prosody of the caregiver’s speech (Dehaene‑Lambertz et al., 2002); and Broca’s area begins coordinating the motor patterns that will later support babbling and speech (Imada et al., 2006). The infant needs to see and hear and feel the touch of their family.

Face-to-face communication leads to mutual imitation (one of the earliest forms of social learning) that engages mirror‑neuron‑related networks that then allow infants to mirror the actions and emotions of others onto their own developing cognitive, mental, motor, and affective systems (Meltzoff & Moore, 1997; Meltzoff, 2007).

Through repeated, reciprocal personal engagement, infants gradually come to recognize others, and this also supports the development of attachment. This developmental process is reinforced by ongoing face‑to‑face parent-infant interaction, in which eye contact, the all-important gaze, and conversational speech, along with hugs and holding, provide emotional support that helps develop the infant’s emerging mental and emotional capacity and the crucial connectivity of attachment, along with motor learning potential (Lavelli & Fogel, 2002).

Continual Personal Communications Become the Basis for Family Rituals

Over time, these repeated, all-important face-to-face relational patterns become the basis for family rituals that organize meaning, predictability, belonging, and trust within the family (Fiese et al., 2002).

As children grow, these early relational experiences also develop and advance the emergence of personal agency, shaping how individuals eventually mature and begin to understand their capacity to choose, act, and influence their personal potential and the impact their choices and actions have on self and within the family (Bandura, 2001).

All of these personal face‑to‑face relational experiences form the neurobiological and psychological scaffolding for empathy, attachment, and early social understanding. Research on parent-infant synchrony shows that it is this crucial and essential ongoing action of personal face‑to‑face interaction that shapes the infant’s developing brain, supporting the emergence of emotional understanding and affiliative family bonds that begin to cultivate early affective and interpersonal development (Feldman, 2007).

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Research on parent-infant connectivity and attachment development shows that these personal, face-to-face exchanges are foundational for emotional regulation, empathy, and the organisation of the infant’s brain and overall development (Feldman, 2007).

The Influence of Social Media and Digital Environments

Studies of early social media exposure show that digital environments cannot substitute for personal, face-to-face interactions (Christakis, 2009). This evidence confirms the irreplaceable role of ongoing, personal, face-to-face human connection not only in early development but across the lifespan, from infants to childhood to adolescence, and on to young adulthood and mature adulthood.

Added to this is the research by Greenfield (2015), which warns that the brain will adapt to whatever environment it is exposed to. What this means is that an individual’s digital immersion may lead to fragmented attention rather than sustained self-reflection and the development of empathic understanding. For children, whose brains are still in the early stages of development, the risks are even greater, as they are to society itself.

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Choices Have Consequences

The research is unambiguous: Digital culture is reshaping the conditions under which human development unfolds, and its consequences extend far beyond debates over attention span or screen time. The immutable fact is that the developing brain depends on personal, reciprocal interaction to build the foundations of empathy, perspective‑taking, and moral understanding. The displacement of face‑to‑face communication by digital media carries profound negative developmental risks. A society without empathy is a danger to itself. (Christakis, 2009; Greenfield, 2015; Madigan et al., 2019; Przybylski & Weinstein, 2013; Uhls et al., 2014).

Research also shows that disruptions to personal connectivity (where the child regularly views a screen) will not only change the child’s brain but also weaken the child’s ability to understand speech and the emotional complexities associated with others’ intentions and feelings. All of this also significantly and detrimentally undermines the neural, psychological, and social capacities that support empathic concern and moral judgment (Charman et al., 2000; Moll, 2023).

In this sense, digital emergence does not merely change the brain; it also changes how we communicate and may even alter the very conditions under which ethical and moral insight develop. Which brings with it extremely serious implications for both individual identity and the cohesion of family and broader social communities (Greenfield, 2015).

The Wisest and Most Powerful of Family Choices

When families put down their devices and turn toward each other, they create the neurological, psychological, and social conditions for joint attention and shared experience, processes that directly support empathic learning and strengthen the family’s cultural connectivity (Shamay‑Tsoory, 2022).

Decades of research in neuroscience, developmental psychology, and social cognition show that face-to-face communication engages the full spectrum of human communicative capacities, including eye contact, vocal tone, micro‑expressions, touch, shared attention, and the development of empathy and prosocial behaviours.

Digital immersion cannot substitute for personal connectivity, but it can and does change and rewire the brain (Feldman, 2012; Konrath et al., 2011; Klimecki, 2015; Singer & Klimecki, 2014). This means that the brain can and, in fact, will be weakened or strengthened in accordance with the choices made (Davidson & McEwen, 2012). An infant in a pram cannot choose, therefore do not place a screen in front of the infant. This is when they will stop seeing the world around them, and the brain will respond accordingly (Purje, 2025).

You’ve Got the Power

The universal reality is that you are responsible for, and you’ve got the power over, what you think, do, say, choose, and learn (Purje, 2014). When individuals and families choose conversation (over scrolling), they then positively reactivate neural pathways that engage the visuospatial core, the brain’s speech centre, and the development of compassion, emotional regulation, moral reasoning, and the crucial family-communication connections that are an imperative in all families (Benetti et al., 2023).

As such, the wisest and most powerful family choices are those that build neurological and social connections, strengthen character and family bonds, and, at the same time, honor the personal and social dignity of the self and the family. You’ve got the power! Choose wisely (Purje, 2014).

References

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Benetti, S., Ferrari, A., & Pavani, F. (2023). Multimodal processing in face-to-face interactions: A bridging link between psycholinguistics and sensory neuroscience. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 17, 1108354.

Charman, T., Baron-Cohen, S., Swettenham, J., Baird, G., Cox, A., & Drew, A. (2000). Testing joint attention, imitation, and play as infancy precursors to language and theory of mind. Cognitive Development, 15(4), 481-498.

Christakis, D. A. (2009). The effects of infant media usage: What do we know and what should we learn? Acta Paediatrica, 98(1), 8–16.

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Dehaene-Lambertz, G., Dehaene, S., & Hertz-Pannier, L. (2002). Functional neuroimaging of speech perception in infants. Science, 298(5600), 2013-2015.

Farroni, T., Csibra, G., Simion, F., & Johnson, M. H. (2002). Eye contact detection in humans from birth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 99(14), 9602–9605.

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Feldman, R. (2012). Parent-infant synchrony: A biobehavioral model of mutual influences in the formation of affiliative bonds. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 77(2), 42-51.

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Greenfield, S. (2015). Mind change: How digital technologies are leaving their mark on our brains. Random House.

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Purje, R. (2014). Responsibility Theory (Who’s got the power?). Amazon/Kindle.

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Uhls, Y. T., Michikyan, M., Morris, J., Garcia, D., Small, G. W., Zgourou, E., & Greenfield, P. M. (2014). Five days at outdoor education camp without screens improves preteen skills with nonverbal emotion cues. Computers in Human Behavior, 39, 387-392.