Screenagers Blog

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) just released recommendations for the number of hours a night that kids and teens need to sleep, to function at their best.

Summer break is upon us and even though our kids won’t be on campus with their friends every day, they can keep the social scene alive on their favorite social media sites.

As we enter into the final weeks of the school year, we are all extra busy trying to fit it so much in. Summer break is right around the corner, and many of us are looking forward to having a little more free time. But what activities will fill that time? Screen-based activities will be more enticing than ever. Are you ready? Frankly, I know it will be a challenge in my home. I have been thinking of things I plan to do and have a few ideas...

A friend recently told me that her son, whose middle school plans to show Screenagers schoolwide before the semester ends, is already feeling defensive about what he anticipates will be “another parent attack” on one more dreaded teen behavior that we parents have to “do something about.”

If you’re like me, you’ve become pretty attached to your device. I check it to find out where I need to be today, to text my friends and kids, to find out what’s up at the office, to record an idea I want to follow up on later … it is my portable office! I am working and parenting! I need to be updated all the time!

Who hasn’t been tempted every once in a while to be a little bit of something they usually aren’t? A little bolder, better, more opinionated or clever than we might appear in our everyday lives? I remember prank phone calls being a typical middle school way to get into a little mischief and “be” someone else.

If you’ve tuned into Tech Talk Tuesday before, you might already know that in my family, we have decided that the car is a “screens-off” space for all of us. It works great when it’s just us in the car. We talk, we catch up, we sit quietly.

Sometimes things happen in life that make you stop and take stock of who your “real” friends are. Like when I feel anxious and I call my friends to give me some moral support. If I need a hand with a ride somewhere for the kids, I call on my local parent crew. If I want to vent about the latest parenting issue, I might post on Facebook and get some reactions from my contacts around the world.

As a doctor, I believe that while there is a true clinical internet/video game addiction, we must be careful about using the term addiction loosely regarding broad use of technology. For serious cases, Internet addiction is a real problem. But for the kid who just won’t put her phone down during dinner? Calling her an addict may do more harm than good.

While I was making Screenagers, I became fascinated by the rapidly growing trend of schools deciding to give every single student on campus a digital device. When I learned that the Los Angeles Unified School District was launching one of these “one-to-one technology” programs and issuing an iPad to every student, I flew down to see for myself how it was going.

When I was a kid, screen and phone time existed, and kids and parents had conflicts over them. We played games, got our entertainment, gossiped with friends, and relied on technology and devices to do it. So how different was it?

Throughout the country spring break has just finally come to a close. But, summer vacation is coming up. What will that mean for screen time in your life? I have some rules to help my family manage screen time while on vacation. We set times that we are all going to check in otherwise we try to disconnect. I was recently in remote areas of Mexico with my family and it was both healing and at times distressing to be without cell service or a computer connection most of the time. I managed by setting expectations with the people I work with about when I would be able to check in and when I would be totally unavailable.