A quick follow up from last week and my grayscale experiment on my phone and our family iPad. Without a doubt, I have used my phone significantly less and our 11 year old has barely picked up the iPad. He used to grab it even with Screen-time controls on and peruse our photos which I somehow justified in my mind as ok. It is ok but it still kept him on the screen. But now in black and white, scrolling photos just isn’t fun. Since last week, he has rediscovered his Legos, there is a pillow fort in our backyard and he is asking more if friends can come over after school. I have learned that the small act of making the devices just a little less alluring packs a big punch. I also learned a trick to set-up three click to toggle between grayscale and color for the times when you do need to see something in color. Click here for that video. If you missed last week’s post on Going Gray(scale) click here.
Some of you know that a few weeks ago I attended a silent meditation and yoga retreat for 6 days. This is a mind-boggling experience for many - even more mind boggling that I would choose precious family free time to be without spoken words. The silent part is for the participants who choose to take a vow of silence for the duration of the retreat in order to help calm and still our very active minds. I often describe it like a snow globe. Our minds are usually in the active state like the fake snow flakes chaotically dancing around in the fluid - life is shaking us up, constantly. The act of going on retreat - removing daily habits, patterns, responsibilities, distractions and speech is a way of setting the snow globe on the table and watching all the snow flakes slowly settle on the bottom, exposing whatever scene happens to be at the bottom. For me meditation and these silent retreats are about this settling of the mind, exposing whatever clarity or truth happens to be under all the fluttering thoughts, ideas and emotions.
I mention this retreat because at the beginning of the retreat, in the hours when there is still chatter and socializing, the teachers explain the importance of renouncing many of the things we distract ourselves with and this includes devices. At check in, there was a basket, a sharpie and a roll of blue painter’s tape and to my surprise the basket was already full of personal smart phones. At the morning session on the first day, our teacher shared that retreat staff had told her that the most people of any retreat ever had turned in their phones. I then watched as another 10-15 people then put their phones in the basket, in a sort of unexpected ritual that said “I am letting go of this and all that is attached to it for the next few days because others around me have done the same”. Made me pause and wonder if we are collectively coming to a point of wanting to put our devices away more and just need to see others doing it too.
Not everyone can turn off their devices for 6 days or even 6 hours. Certain careers, responsibilities, care taking duties and family circumstances do not allow for this. I get it. But mixed in with all these times and situations in which having a device on is critical, are thousands of moments and situations that we have made critical or overly important by being constantly available and we have created a reality in which things that are not urgent have become urgent. I mean check out how many people apologize in their emails or text responses if they didn’t respond same day or same hour! So if you are reading this and saying I can’t turn my phone off for 6 days - can you ask yourself “But for how long could I turn my phone off?”
I started writing in this space to talk about tech and families because back in October 2022 our family was on tech overload. For us, it was weekends with hours on hours of video games, evenings with everyone on their own device in a different room, hours on YouTube shorts and Instagram scrolling and constant battles and breakdowns about turning things off. We tried implementing our pre-pandemic rules, having family conversations and signing contracts. Nothing was working with consistency and my husband finally said let’s go cold-turkey: one month no devices. We talked, we created the ground rules, then we told the boys the following: On October 1, 2022 we are starting 30 days of no devices for entertainment. No video games, no TV, no movies, no YouTube, no Instagram. They sort of looked at us in disbelief, maybe asked a few questions and then said “Ok” with a bit of a deflated, we-know-it’s-futile-to-fight-this sigh.
Oct 1 was mid-week and the first few days without devices seemed totally fine. I was cocky and thought oh this is going to be so super easy. Our boys didn’t play video games during the week anyway so that wasn’t a big adjustment. But then Friday afternoon/night hit and let’s just say the shit hit the fan. Like really hit. Like hangry, annoyed, tired, bored and backed against the wall all rolled into one - all 4 of us at the same time. It was liked we had completely lost our ability to choose any kind of other activity than our devices and had no desire or energy to be resourceful or creative.
The experience was in a way dealing with withdrawal. Saturday got easier as we filled it with activities and time with friends. By Sunday morning, our two boys were playing together again, which hadn’t happened in a long time and the barrage of questions like “Can I play?” “Can I watch?” was getting less. By the end of the 30 days, we truly were able to see and feel the benefits. Now over a few months, we have landed in a space where we can enjoy movies and the boys can enjoy video games again, occasionally, as a special thing to do instead of an expected thing to do. I do believe that the only way to re-program this habitualized reaction to grab for a device in any moment is only possible by removing it completely for a while.
So why a post of digitally detoxing now? A few reasons:
I have the lived experience from my own device free retreat a few weeks ago and how impactful it was for me to have my phone away and I would like to keep that momentum going.
Just because we did great with our family digital detox in October doesn’t mean it stuck 100%. It gets fuzzy and habits creep in and this is a reminder to me to keep at it. It’s never a one and done. Re-committing and re-connecting to the habits we want to have around tech or sleep or nutrition or exercise is always a work in progress.
Next week is national Screen Free Week, an annual event created by the Screen Time Action Network. Families and individuals from many different states, schools and communities are committing to take the pledge - to use the first week in May to change a tech habit in whatever form they like whether it is going off TikTok for a week, putting phones away during meals for a week, having a whole device free day or committing to the full no devices for a week. It’s about looking at your own screen/tech habits and choosing what you can and want to commit to.
Summer is coming up and for us with all the joy and pleasure that comes with unstructured time and no school comes my dread about what unstructured time and lack of school schedule means for our tech habits. Look for a post in May about preparing for {and accepting} summer time screen time coming up in a few weeks!
For now, we as a family are going to use the Screen Free Week to try some things out. I of course have a list of habits I’d like certain family members to change but this won’t work that way. It never does if it’s coming from someone else. Instead, I will share what I am going to do next week and then ask my husband and boys to think about what they would like to focus on and make that commitment to themselves. Sort of like this:
Turn up the volume on things that are working, turn down the volume on things that are causing harm, and carve out space for offline time.
Jen Kane, ScreenFree Week coordinator
Curious about trying a digital detox next week, either solo or with your family?
I highly recommend reading this post from Jen Kane about Screen Free Week and what it could look like and that it really does start with our own actions. I found some of her insights and suggestions very useful: like you need to reduce but then also refill. She recommends creating a list of things to fill the space that devices take up. This would have helped our first Friday family meltdown back in October. If you have ever needed to make nutritional changes, maybe you learned that it’s easier to eliminate certain food when you first learn what you can have instead of focusing on what you can’t have. She also suggests writing a Post-It note of interruption activities - meaning what can you do instead of reaching for our phones? And lastly, her two top suggestions that really can make an impact on device use are:
Turning off all notifications
Getting phones out of the bedroom
I hope you don’t feel overwhelmed and now feel like there is just another thing around tech use you need to do. There isn’t. And don’t add doing a digital detox next week or anytime to your to-do list if it feels like you should - only do it if it feels like it’s something you have really wanted to try (either for yourself and/or your family) and it would feel good knowing you are doing it with others. It’s not meant to create more struggle, work or stress. It’s meant to be a tool and if you have a toolbox, know that this it is in there, for when you do need it or want it. For us it was a bottom of the barrel reaction when nothing else was working and it’s a tool that works for us. Luckily our two boys, though they were not super happy about it, they were willing and they fully participated. If you asked them now, they would probably say they don’t miss the fighting and arguing and that playing video games now is really exciting because it’s special again. We have all been lured into the seduction of screens and it will take some time to reacquaint ourselves with the pleasures and creativity and joy that we can create without them.
Always love to hear from you - reactions/questions/experiences!
Until next week,