If your child’s life has included a Minecraft phase, you know what I’m talking about. There’s the beginner level of the game that you play, walking from place to place collecting resources for survival, and there are the deeper levels, that can include creating entire neighborhoods to programming your own action sequences and building tools that you make available to other players.
In other words, you can play in passive mode or you can juice up your creative powers and be a contributing participant in an innovating Minecraft community.
When I get online, I can waste a lot of time alongside the best of them…browsing, falling down an internet rabbit hole in the name of research, tuning out other obligations I don’t want to face in the moment. I look up, and it’s hours later. Sound familiar?
And then there are those incredible screen time opportunities — finding inspiration in a favorite blog, discovering the exact piece of research data I was missing, laughing uncontrollably with the whole family at a funny movie scene we’ll recall for years, gathering momentum and notes for my next project.
Screen life is full of contradictions:
Consume (“I’m going shopping!”) or create (“Wow, you shot and edited that film on your ipad?”)
Connect (“that’s just what I was thinking?”) or disengage (“if I look busy, no one will bother me”)
Discover (“that gives me a great idea!”) or distract (“I just need to ‘veg out’ for a while”)
Recognizing these differences means we don’t treat all screen time as the same; we know it’s more complex than that and consider that reality when creating screen time rules with our family.
This week, try using your tech conversation to notice the different qualities screen time can have.
As well as our weekly blog, we publish videos like this one every week on the Screenagers YouTube channel
If your child’s life has included a Minecraft phase, you know what I’m talking about. There’s the beginner level of the game that you play, walking from place to place collecting resources for survival, and there are the deeper levels, that can include creating entire neighborhoods to programming your own action sequences and building tools that you make available to other players.
In other words, you can play in passive mode or you can juice up your creative powers and be a contributing participant in an innovating Minecraft community.
When I get online, I can waste a lot of time alongside the best of them…browsing, falling down an internet rabbit hole in the name of research, tuning out other obligations I don’t want to face in the moment. I look up, and it’s hours later. Sound familiar?
And then there are those incredible screen time opportunities — finding inspiration in a favorite blog, discovering the exact piece of research data I was missing, laughing uncontrollably with the whole family at a funny movie scene we’ll recall for years, gathering momentum and notes for my next project.
Screen life is full of contradictions:
Consume (“I’m going shopping!”) or create (“Wow, you shot and edited that film on your ipad?”)
Connect (“that’s just what I was thinking?”) or disengage (“if I look busy, no one will bother me”)
Discover (“that gives me a great idea!”) or distract (“I just need to ‘veg out’ for a while”)
Recognizing these differences means we don’t treat all screen time as the same; we know it’s more complex than that and consider that reality when creating screen time rules with our family.
This week, try using your tech conversation to notice the different qualities screen time can have.
As well as our weekly blog, we publish videos like this one every week on the Screenagers YouTube channel
I often talk about using tech (laptops, phones, etc.) as a tool, treat, or talking device. An effective way to model screen-time choices is to say out loud in front of your kids when you are using a device as a tool, treat, or talking device. As we enter summertime, I have been reflecting on the creation of family memories and that when we shake up things, we stack the cards in favor of lasting memories. Using tech in clever ways can help make memories. Today, I share some fun ideas for summer activities.
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Our unique Tech-Free Gift Guide offers a refreshing escape from digital overload, presenting a handpicked selection of imaginative gifts. From culinary adventures and creative arts to educational magazines and physical activities, we emphasize experiences that foster family bonding, creativity, and healthy habits. The guide includes community-building ideas like mural painting and beekeeping, encouraging children and teens to engage in enriching, screen-free activities while creating lasting memories and developing new skills.
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My team and I have been bustling behind the scenes, thinking up new episodes for the Screenagers Podcast and new posts for my weekly Tech Talk Tuesday Blog. Your input at this time would be FANTASTIC! What topics do you want covered? Do your kids have ideas for topics?
READ MORE >for more like this, DR. DELANEY RUSTON'S NEW BOOK, PARENTING IN THE SCREEN AGE, IS THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE FOR TODAY’S PARENTS. WITH INSIGHTS ON SCREEN TIME FROM RESEARCHERS, INPUT FROM KIDS & TEENS, THIS BOOK IS PACKED WITH SOLUTIONS FOR HOW TO START AND SUSTAIN PRODUCTIVE FAMILY TALKS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY AND IT’S IMPACT ON OUR MENTAL WELLBEING.
