The Place of "Screen Time" in Your Family Life
Like workaholism and unhealthy eating, excessive screen time belongs to the “everybody denounces it but everybody does it anyway” category. Of course, “everybody” doesn’t mean literally everybody. There are many happy exceptions—and your family can be among them, if you’re brave enough to set the example and live with less television, social media, text/email messages, and computer games.
You needn’t give up screens altogether
You just need a little discretion and self-discipline.
Like workaholism and unhealthy eating, excessive screen time belongs to the “everybody denounces it but everybody does it anyway” category. Of course, “everybody” doesn’t mean literally everybody. There are many happy exceptions—and your family can be among them, if you’re brave enough to set the example and live with less television, social media, text/email messages, and computer games. You needn’t give up screens altogether: you just need a little discretion and self-discipline.
Passive Screen Time
It’s been a long time since televisions were the only home screens most people knew, but many people still waste endless evenings staring blankly at TV sets. Worse, it’s getting harder and harder to find public places that don’t shove their own screens in your face.
The first rule in your own home is: keep the television off unless someone is actually watching. The second rule: don’t look for something worth watching just for the sake of having something to watch—there are better ways to spend your time. Besides individual hobbies and outside groups, plan regular family nights with a variety of togetherness activities. And if anyone already has a television addiction (or if you have acquaintances who switch on the set whenever they visit), consider hiding the remote.
With unwanted public televisions, you still have options:
- Just turn your back on the set, if you all can face the same direction and the screen has captions rather than sound.
- Directly ask management to seat you out of sound and sight of the television, or even to turn it off. If nothing else, it’ll alert them that not every customer wants to eat in front of CNN broadcasts.
- If there’s a television on every wall, take your business elsewhere. Or get your order to-go and eat it at home.
There are better ways to spend your time
Besides individual hobbies and outside groups, plan regular family nights with a variety of togetherness activities.
Interactive Screen Time
From desktop computers in home offices to smartphones in the hand, interactive screens are everywhere—and it’s not always easy to draw the line between important and time-wasting activities. Hold a family meeting to discuss exactly how, when, and why everyone is using screens. What can be better scheduled, or eliminated?
Whatever parameters suit your family, a few universal rules are:
- Absolutely no checking of phones at the dinner table, during family meetings, or at any other time when focus should be on those physically present. In the rare event that someone is likely to be contacted about a matter too important to wait an hour, set their phone for “Do Not Disturb” so only the one expected contact can get through. Ideally, put the phone out of the owner’s reach so they can hear it if it does buzz, but won’t be tempted to keep glancing at it.
- With email and social media, always take care of true Priority A matters before looking at anything else.
- Never use a portable screen while walking or driving. Avoid multitasking screen time with anything else if possible.
- Always remember that few “urgent” messages will be important in a month, but the attention you give your family will pay lifelong dividends.