by Betsy Shaw posted in Mom Stories
So how does one speak favorably of screen free week on a blog without coming off as a total fraud? I suppose I could have mailed you all informational brochures, but I don’t have all your addresses.
Screen Free Week, which I learned about on Twitter, started, alas, on April 30th and runs until May 6th. It’s the brain child of The Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood (CCFC).
And the message is to power down your laptops, put away the iPads, stash the smart phones where you can’t see, hear, or feel their magnetic pull, unplug the TV, if you still have one, and, um, then what?
Oh yeah, once all that electronic distraction is out of the way, we can practice the art of engaging with the natural world around us and, steady now, conversing face to face, or even ear to ear, with another human being.
This is what the CCFC really says:
“Screen-Free Week is a fun and innovative way to improve children’s well-being by reducing dependence on entertainment screen media, including television, video games, computers, and hand-held devices. It’s a time for children to play outside, read, daydream, create, explore, and spend more time having fun with family and friends.”
They also speak to the fact that children allegedly spend 32 hours per week with screens, and all this screen time is detrimental to their intellect, their school performance and their physical health.
If you want to hear a more blunt version of this very real concern about the effects of too much internet, either read Nicholas Carr’s book “What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains” or watch this video clip.
Or read this prescient opinion piece Losing the art of conversation? by Sherry Turkle.
Turkle doesn’t recommending we eliminate technology from our lives so much as we establish and maintain boundaries. She suggests setting up screen-free zones in our lives and especially in our homes.
I really like that idea. And the first thing I would do is ban technology from the bedroom. I am more sleep deprived than ever lately and can blame it almost entirely on my new habit of “working” in bed. Duh.
While the screen-free week campaign is focused on kids, I could greatly benefit from a screen sabbatical at this point in my life. My laptop is the root of just about all of ails me– my bad moods, depression, lack of exercise, time management issues, bad diet– we’re always rushing lately, etc., etc., etc. I’ve lost touch with my body and my mind and I suspect this here screen has a lot to do with it.
And the compulsive need to check screens Carr speaks of, always seeking the high of new information? Oh yea, that’s me.
Thankfully, my kids don’t own any handheld screens. They haven’t asked and I haven’t offered. Their only computer time is limited to my laptop and the laptop Esther occasionally brings home from school. It’s really me, at this point, who needs the lesson in moderation.
Sometimes I feel we should bring back the television. With TV, there is a beginning and an end. The internet is infinite.
How about you? Have screens infiltrated your life and family? Are you concerned about the amount of time you or your kids spend with screens?
Read more from source:“babycenter-com-baby”
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