Parents across the globe wrestle with the double edged world of smartphones and social media in the hands and pockets of their children. The opportunities for creativity, connection and content that catches the interests of kids are abundant. And yet the nagging feeling that something is awry sits uncomfortably in the back of our minds. The data coming out is disturbing. A mental health crisis is mushrooming before our eyes and the messages our kids hear and see on a daily basis are from every corner of the world – some good and many, just plain awful. Our kids are often exposed to ideas and images that are beyond their cognitive and emotional capacities.
Where my childhood (I just turned 50) was shaped largely by the messages of my local community, a limited number of media outlets and whatever books I could procure at my local library, our kids are subject to a billion messages from a billion sources. My childhood was naturally curated. Our responsibility to our kids today then, is to help curate messages for them. We need not coddle them but we must guide them.
I’ve been thinking about these realities for a while now – both the good and the bad – and want to share a few ideas to help create a rich learning environment for our kids where we can avoid the dangers of a single story while protecting them from the seductive, slot machine of the billion story world that is ravaging kids and teens today.
Read: The Danger of a Single Story . . . and a Billion Stories Too
My first encouragement would be to pick up a copy of Andy Crouch’s important book, The Techwise Family and subscribe to Johnathan Haidt’s substack After Babel. They are two voices who are thinking deeply about the role of tech in our lives. These few ideas are mostly from their writings and conversations I’ve listened to in interviews.
- Flip Phones Until High School: This is an idea that Haidt promotes that would do a lot to help kids pass through the already confusing and difficult junior high years without the need to also deal with the constant barage of messages from a smartphone connected constantly to the internet.
- No Social Media Until Sixteen: Again, Haidt suggests we protect our kids from the hazards of social media until they are a bit older and through the generally difficult junior high years.
- Regular Media Fasts: Crouch suggests the idea that your family – parents included – fast from their phones one hour a day, one day a week and one week a year. Mom and Dad will need to lead on this one. One hour a day while you enjoy a family meal – sounds wonderful. One day a week. I turn off my phone most Saturday nights at 8:00 pm and turn it back on Sunday night at 8:00 pm. Pairing it with Sabbath rest has created far more rejuvenating Sundays. One week a year. Take a vacation and leave the phones at home. Sounds crazy and perhaps mom can bring hers for navigation and emergencies but imagine the freedom, the conversations in the car, the need to use our imaginations rather than just being mindlessly entertained at the first hint of boredom.
- Family Read Alouds: Find good books and don’t read to your kids, read with them. You have to want to read aloud each night as much as they do. You’ll know you’re doing well when the kids ask for one more chapter and you give in because you’re just as excited as them to see what happens next. I write this blog to share ideas for family read alouds. In the car, audiobooks can fill a road trip with the joy of a shared story and much to talk about.
- Be Model Readers: One of the clearest memories from my childhood was that my older brother went to bed every night with a book in his hand. Mom and dad too, read books often. Their model fostered a love in me of reading as well. For your kids sake, pick up a book and read.
- Curate Good Books: The books we chose to read to our kids and to help them read on their own will shape their worldview and form them as they grow into adulthood. It’s important then that we choose good literature. Books allow them to, as Attucus Finch tells Scout, “climb into another’s skin and walk around in it.” If we want our kids to grow in empathy and compassion, in their sense of justice and grace, in their view of a future marked by hope, then helping them read good books is an important task for any parent. And of course this includes movies as well.
These are just six simple ideas that I hope will be helpful. It will take intentionality. It may take the hard work of shifting the culture of how your home interacts with screens, smartphones and social media. We can lead our kids into a new way of interacting with devices and understand the reality that, as Dallas Willard points out, “The ultimate freedom we have as human beings is the power to select what we will allow or require our minds to dwell upon.”
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