“I just need to get to the next level!”
More than any other, this phrase might be remembered as the signature slogan of our children’s generation, the plaintive cry millions of 21st-century, glassy-eyed kids echo as their parents ask them to come to dinner, do their homework, or (ridiculous notion) play. (How popular is this phrase? I saw it printed on a boy’s T-shirt for sale at Target.)
“Hey you! Screen man! ” I’ll say to my son, under the spell of a Wii or video game or TV show. “Come join me! It’s this realistic three-dimensional world. The colors are true to life. And you can interact in real time, F2F.” Because he’s in the zone, I never get a response. But if he ever snapped out of his screen-induced stupor to ask what I was talking about, I’d tell my son about this alternate place called reality.
How did my son succumb to the pied piper charms of the world of screens? Of course, anyone should rightly find blame not with my son, or with any children who’ve become screen-aholics, but with the parents. We’ve let this happen. But how?
I look back at my diligent efforts to keep my child screen-free for his first few years of life, with a rare episode of Sesame Street tainting his otherwise TV- and video-free toddler years. We easily filled our free time. I took my son on hikes. We threw parties for his stuffies. Made dioramas. Played in the garden.
But then he’d be at a restaurant and watch, longingly, as another boy one table over played with a hand-held device. He’d go on a play date and spend hours playing video games he wasn’t allowed to at home.
Then, on his seventh birthday, he got his own DS. After that red-letter day, the finger I’d been holding in the dam was useless. What became an annoying leak at home somehow turned into a flood. I think about Arne Duncan’s upbringing. How there were no screens in his house, and how Arne’s (forgive the familiarity — I like calling him Arne) dad read kids classics like Moby Dick every night. I think about my own childhood, watching Brady Bunch reruns ad naseum, and how — coincidence or cause and effect? — I’m not the director of education and he is.
This week — September 19 through 25 — is Turnoff Week, which urges us to spend one week away from screens. Given that, for most grownups, our screens include computers at work, it’s near impossible to turn them off entirely. But consider this: According to the Center for Screen-Time Awareness, on average Americans spend over eight hours a day staring at a TV, computer, game console, or cell phone. Maybe we can all step away from our screens, for just a few hours for a few days, to reclaim some refreshing time offscreen. (Click here for ideas on what to do during Turnoff Week, and here and here for how to minimize screen time. Yes, the irony isn’t lost that you’ll have to spend time on your computer doing that. Or reading this.)
Tonight, to celebrate my son’s 13th birthday, our family is playing a board game. At his request. All hope is not lost.
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