Jamaica – Youth Should Stay ‘Unplugged’ Says Phylicia Rashad

2026-03-03 - 13:45

Award-winning actress Phylicia Rashad is encouraging young people to step back from the constant pull of social media and artificial intelligence, warning that the battle for their time and attention is more significant than many realise. Speaking with Observer Online during the 10th anniversary staging of the Women of Vision: A Visionary Salon, hosted by Plié for the Arts, Rashad cautioned that digital platforms are intentionally designed to command focus. “Pay attention, young people. These things were created to take your time and attention,” she said, adding, “Your time is the most valuable thing you have. We don’t get that back. And your attention is your power to direct your focus wherever you choose. Don’t give it away.” Responsibility Beyond Youth While addressing concerns about the growing influence of online spaces, Rashad stressed that responsibility does not rest solely on young shoulders. She argued that adults must guide how children engage with technology rather than fault them for exposure to systems built to capture engagement. “It is not young people’s fault that they are being presented with all of these...so let’s not burden the young people with blame. Let’s see what we can do to unplug. Unplug, and be with the person next to you,” she urged. Rashad, best known for portraying Clair Huxtable on the iconic sitcom The Cosby Show, reflected on her own upbringing, noting that each generation has faced its own dominant form of media distraction. “In my generation, when I was a young person, it wasn’t the computer, it wasn’t the social media, it wasn’t the telephone, it was the television,” she said. She recounted how her mother would literally limit access. “And what my mother did was— and I’m going to date myself and I don’t mind— she would take [the] tubes out of the set.” An Artistic Upbringing Rashad credited much of her development to the influence of her mother, Vivian Ayers Allen, a Pulitzer-nominated poet who founded “Workshops in Open Fields,” a programme providing accessible arts education to students in Houston. Allen later acquired what remained of her own alma mater, the Brainerd Institute, transforming it into a space where creative instruction continues. A member of the institution’s final graduating class in 1939, Allen was laid to rest on the restored compound after her passing at age 102 last year. Rashad described her childhood as intentionally “unplugged,” filled instead with enrichment. “I grew up unplugged and in lieu of that, there would be music lessons, and we’d go to museums, and we’d read books, and we’d have conversations, and she’d [my mother] take us to lectures,” she said. “We couldn’t possibly understand it, given the ages that we were, and she knew that...But [we] had to be there so a seed could be planted.” Changing Social Patterns Sharing a recent observation relayed by a fellow actor and father, Rashad highlighted how digital habits may be reshaping social interaction among children. “I was with a group of creative people the other night, and one of the actors, a young man, who is the father of a child who was eight years old, was talking about the fact that his observation was that, young people especially, in seeing other people, kind of withdraw, but when they look at a screen, they light up,” she said. In closing, Rashad reiterated her call for intentional disconnection and reconnection with tangible experiences. “Unplug, and go out and be in nature. Unplug and pick up a book to read. Unplug, and go out and help somebody.”