Dr Wiremu Manaia is Director Māori at the Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT) in Ōtara. (Photo: Francesca Brugnoli)
Dr Wiremu Manaia has been observing the impact of technology addiction on rangatahi for the past 20 years, as part of a long-running research projec**t. Here, he reports on what the research has found.
In 2006, I began a research project designed to answer a simple question: “What do Māori students need to succeed in tertiary education?”
At the time, technology addiction wasn’t even on our radar — but it soon became impossible to ignore.
The Māori Student Aspirations Research Project, as it was called, was conducted under the auspices of the medical and health sciences faculty at the University of Auckland, where I was lecturing at the time.
It involved interviews with Māori students, whānau, and staff across the university’s six faculties. We were looking for patterns associated with achievement, resilience, aspiration, participation, and support.
Technology was discussed, but only in terms of access. Students wanted computers, printers, and access to the internet and to campus computer labs. Technology was seen as helpful, but not essential.
What none of us anticipated was how quickly technology would evolve from an educational support tool into something far more powerful — a psychological, social, behavioural, and cultural force capable of reshaping an entire generation.
Twenty years later, the world of Māori youth is almost unrecognisable. Technology is no longer simply something our rangatahi use. Increasingly, it’s something they live through.
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“The goal is to raise tamariki who are confident with technology without becoming disconnected from themselves, their relationships, or their culture.” Pictured: student at Manukau Institute of Technology in Ōtara. (Photo: Francesca Brugnoli)
In the early 2000s, university study in Aotearoa was still largely analogue. Students attended lectures with notebooks and pens. Libraries were central to learning. Assignments were printed and physically handed in. Many students didn’t own computers, and it was still possible to complete a degree without a personal device.
By the early 2010s, technology had become useful, but not yet compulsory. Students could still succeed through traditional learning methods, supported by shared computer labs and printed materials.
Then the transition accelerated. Digital learning platforms became standard. Online submissions became expected. Laptops and internet access became educational necessities rather than mere advantages.
By 2016, when we reviewed the project, international research was beginning to recognise technology addiction as a real behavioural problem. There were growing concerns about children’s cognitive and emotional development. Researchers worried that tech companies were evolving faster than ethics and regulation. Concerns about AI were also starting to surface. One of the deepest fears was cultural and human disconnection — and it was that, in particular, that led us to shift our research focus to addiction and adolescent behaviour.
Then came Covid-19. Almost overnight, education, communication, entertainment, relationships, and work collapsed into a single screen-based environment. For many young people, particularly those already vulnerable to anxiety, disengagement, or social isolation, technology ceased to be a tool and became an environment.
Much of this research was illustrated by the ironic situations we observed during the project.
For example, during a marae hui with parents to discuss concerns about technology addiction, we noticed the parents were constantly checking their phones.
During interviews with research participants, their families sat behind them, scrolling on their phones. In one instance, a mother took a photo of her daughter being interviewed and then posted it on Facebook during the interview.
Academics complained that students were constantly distracted in class by their technology. When our researchers observed them working, they saw the reality of it: Students receiving a continuous stream of messages, alerts, notifications and digital tasks on their phones, or playing games, surfing the net, shopping online and scrolling through material that had nothing to do with their lecture.
We also reviewed health science programmes on addiction that required students to stay connected through online portals, email, apps and notifications.
These moments didn’t feel like isolated contradictions so much as signs of how deeply technology had become woven into everyday life — even in the middle of conversations about technology addiction.
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“What none of us anticipated was how quickly technology would evolve from an educational support tool into something far more powerful — a psychological, social, behavioural, and cultural force capable of reshaping an entire generation.”
Over the past two decades, I’ve observed several recurring patterns among younger generations.
The first is technology dependency*.*
Smartphones, gaming, streaming services, social media, and now artificial intelligence systems are deeply embedded in everyday life. Many young people struggle to function socially, emotionally, or educationally without constant digital engagement.
The second is the replacement of physical relationships with digital relationships.
While online communication has expanded opportunities for connection, many rangatahi now spend more time interacting on screens than kanohi ki te kanohi, face-to-face. The result is a generation that can appear highly connected digitally while becoming increasingly socially isolated.
The third is identity fragmentation*.*
Social media allows individuals to create filtered identities and curated lifestyles. For young people still developing confidence and self-worth, the online world can become more emotionally rewarding than reality. The result is often heightened anxiety, emotional instability, vulnerability to rejection, and declining resilience.
The fourth issue is the illusion of independence*.*
Technology gives young people unprecedented freedom and privacy, but not always the maturity or discipline required to use it safely. Access to information, entertainment, online relationships, and digital communities now occurs with very limited adult supervision.
The final issue is internet dependency itself.
Many young people now live in a permanent state of interconnectedness. Silence, boredom, waiting, and solitude, once normal parts of life, are increasingly uncomfortable for younger generations. Constant stimulation is the norm. Algorithms increasingly shape attention spans, aspirations, emotional responses, and behaviour. Reflection, patience, and deep concentration seem increasingly rare.
These developments aren’t merely educational issues — they’re closely linked to broader social and health challenges.
We’re seeing growing concerns about cyberbullying, anxiety, depression, pornography addiction, online gambling behaviours, sedentary lifestyles, obesity, declining physical activity, loneliness, and mental health fragility.
For Māori communities, these issues intersect with longstanding inequities. Technology doesn’t erase poverty, housing instability, educational disadvantage, or health inequities. In many cases, it amplifies these inequities by increasing social isolation, distraction, financial pressure, misinformation, and unequal access to education, opportunities, and healthy relationships.
The digital divide is no longer just about access to devices or the internet. Increasingly, it is behavioural, emotional, cultural, and psychological — shaped by how technology affects attention, relationships, identity, and wellbeing.
For example, a Māori student may have full access to digital learning tools yet still struggle academically because of constant scrolling, gaming, online pressure, and reduced sleep, concentration, and motivation.
This creates a profound leadership challenge.
Many parents, teachers, and leaders were raised in a world fundamentally different from the one modern rangatahi now inhabit. The digital world is evolving faster than many institutions and whānau structures can adapt.
This is particularly significant for Māori. Traditional Māori society was built on whakapapa relationships, collective identity, intergenerational learning, oral communication, physical presence, and community participation. By contrast, digital culture can foster individualism, instant gratification, social isolation, and disconnection from physical environments and relationships.
This doesn’t mean technology is inherently harmful. It has also created extraordinary opportunities for Māori development. Te reo Māori revitalisation has benefited enormously from digital platforms, and online learning has improved accessibility. Māori businesses, educators, artists, and content creators can now reach global audiences in ways previously unimaginable.
The challenge isn’t technology itself, but how we manage dependency.
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Preparing our rangatahi for the future can’t simply mean providing devices and internet access. It must also include teaching self-regulation, critical thinking, emotional resilience, identity security, cultural grounding, and healthy human relationships.
As Māori communities, we must learn how to engage with technology without allowing it to consume the cultural, emotional, social, and spiritual foundations that sustain us.
The best place to start is with parents. To that end, our research team has developed Ahurea, a model to help whānau navigate the growing influence of digital technology, screen exposure, and artificial intelligence on tamariki.
Grounded in hauora and whanaungatanga, Ahurea focuses on creating a home culture where technology remains a tool rather than the emotional centre of family life.
This includes delaying children’s access and exposure to technology for as long as possible. Providing children with meaningful alternatives to technology — not just restrictions. Establishing healthy boundaries around technology use. And ensuring that parents model healthy behaviour by practising what they preach.
The goal is to raise tamariki who are confident with technology without becoming disconnected from themselves, their relationships, or their culture.
“The concern is not simply that children are using screens, but that screens are displacing the very experiences young brains biologically require for healthy development — human interaction, play, movement, sleep, communication, and emotional connection and regulation.”
Technology should enhance human potential — not replace it. This is especially important for preschool children.
In 2020, American pediatrician John S Sutton conducted a study showing that preschool children with high screen exposure had lower “white matter integrity” in parts of their brains. White matter is the brain’s communication network, allowing different parts of the brain to send messages quickly and efficiently to one another. It is linked to language, literacy, and functioning.
The concern is not simply that children are using screens, but that screens are displacing the very experiences young brains biologically require for healthy development — human interaction, play, movement, sleep, communication, and emotional connection and regulation.
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Māori perspectives have always emphasised balance — between people and the environment, between individual and collective responsibility, between progress and identity, and between knowledge and wisdom.
Those values are increasingly important in a world dominated by rapidly evolving technology.
Artificial intelligence is accelerating this transformation. The next generation of Māori youth will grow up in a world shaped by virtual environments, predictive algorithms, and technologies we can barely imagine today.
Technology will inevitably shape their future. But our responsibility as Māori is to ensure our rangatahi remain grounded in whakapapa, whānau, tikanga, identity, and humanity as they navigate this future.
Our tūpuna adapted to every major transformation they faced without surrendering their identity. There is no reason we can’t do the same, as long as we remain grounded in who we are, where we come from, and what that means.
Dr Wiremu Manaia is Director Māori at Manukau Institute of Technology in Ōtara. His work has focused on Māori education, rangatahi development, leadership, and the social impacts of emerging technology on Indigenous communities.
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