Who else here is planning to curb your screen addiction in 2019? As parents, we often spend so much time worrying about our kids’ screen time (and how to preserve my sanity during a 700th viewing of Cars 3), but everything I’ve heard and read points to me as setting the example of balanced tech use.
With that in mind, we’re launching a Curb Your Screen Addiction post series to help you manage your own screen time, which we’ll be releasing over the next week and doing ourselves. The great news is that these realistic tips and tricks work even for parents who need to stay available for phone calls from teens or who don’t want to miss too much of Jonathan Van Ness’s burgeoning ice skating career on Instagram.
It’s all about balance, people.
Related: The 11 best tech New Year’s resolutions worth keeping
Tip 1: Create a tech-free sacred space in your home.
Our first tip comes from tech guru and author of Tech Generation, Mike Brooks, who joined Kristen on Spawned to talk about screen time for kids. (You’ll definitely want to check it out since he gives a magic number for how much time children should be spending in front of screens per day — game-changing.)
But my favorite part was his suggestion to create sacred, tech-free spaces in your home. It can be a place, like your bedroom, or even a piece of furniture, like the dinner table, or that one couch that’s so hard to get off of once you start scrolling through Facebook. Yeah, you know the one.
Mike says one of the most important functions of minimizing screen time is creating more face-to-face time with other humans, like family members, which is something we can totally get on board with. So, if you’re banning individual screen time at the table or the couch, use those spaces as opportunities to connect with other people, and set yourself up for success. Leave some enticing books and magazines near the couch, or have a box of Table Topics ready to go for your next meal.
We’ll be sharing more helpful tips and tricks for curbing your screen addiction all week long. We’d love for you to join us! Leave us a comment and let us know how it’s going, or share your own tips and tricks with us.
Top image: Daniel Frank via Unsplash
Other posts in our Curb Your Screen Addiction series:
