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Helpful Tips, Research, Articles & More.

Resources

Key Resources

  • "The Anxious Generation: How the Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness" by Jonathan Haidt

  • "Dopamine Nation" by Anna Lembke

  • "Who's Raising the Kids" by Susan Linn

  • "Wired Child: Reclaiming Childhood in a Digital Age" by Richard Freed

  • "Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World" by Cal Newport

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Books

Tips for Delaying Addictive Tech

Tips for Delaying Addictive Tech

There is ample research about the benefits of delaying your child's access to addictive tech. Below find helpful information to support your family's choice to use tech in healthy & intentional ways.

Articles & Video About Delaying

  1. "The Last Kid in Ninth Grade Without an iPhone" by Liz Krieger (New York Magazine)

  2. "Kids Who Get Smartphones Earlier Become Adults with Worse Mental Health" by Jon Haidt (After Babel)

  3. "Dear daughter: Why you're not getting a phone until high school" by Sophie Brickman (Essay)​

6 Habit Changes

  1. Talk to your child about the Healthy Tech Pledge, addictive technology, and persuasive design that keeps us scrolling - see "Talking Points" below

  2. Get a home phone for kids to call each other - this encourages independence, communication & responsibility

  3. Use a tech box to create time away from your devices - this is a very healthy boundary

  4. Arrange family and friend time without phones (meals, hang-outs, outdoor time, etc.)

  5. Challenge yourself & your kids: Don’t immediately Google it - talk about it & use critical thinking skills

  6. Challenge yourself and your kids: Go places without phones - take in what you see, hear, feel, taste, and smell around you without addictive tech interfering with the experience

Talking Points for You & Your Child

Here are some things to discuss with your child about WHY you are pledging to give them a basic phone or watch before high school (when/if they are ready & need it), and WHY you are pledging to delay social media until age 16. 

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  1. Smartphones and the apps on them are designed to be highly addictive, which makes it very hard to find balance and put them down. By delaying this addictive tech, we are giving you more time to play with your friends, connect without screens, get outside, think critically, and be creative! These are all VERY IMPORTANT things for your development.

  2. We want you to learn how to communicate with your friends and family through calling and texting, but you don’t need the internet in your pocket at all times. It’s better for you to learn to do things without over-reliance on a smartphone and the internet. This will help you be more independent and confident to figure things out on your own.

  3. Social media is addictive and manipulates kids’ feelings which can create challenges that kids aren’t able to handle; even for adults it’s hard!  What you usually see on social media is a filtered, edited version of people’s lives that is not a real representation. This will help you focus on true friendships, real life experiences, and developing your authentic identity from within.

Write a Letter to Your Child

Write a personal letter to your child about your intentions, hopes, and concerns about their use of technology now and in the future. Sample language coming soon!​

Tips for Giving Tech

Tips for Giving Tech (When Everyone is Ready!) 

General Advice

​When you feel your child is ready for a smartphone and/or limited social media access, the basic premise is to start with a very limited phone, and from the beginning create a tech agreement that outlines the rules around use (where, when, and how). It’s important to check in routinely with your child about the “pull” of the device/app, and to scaffold the access, increasing slowly over time. This involves sharing, connection, checking social media feeds with your child, and monitoring the parental controls and safety features. In the same way you might teach your child to play a sport and they gain skills slowly over time, or rehearse a play working on individual scenes and ending (after hundreds of hours and practice and feedback) with the final performance ... the introduction of addictive technology takes time and thought. Also important are discussions about Googling, internet searching, and vetting trusted sites on the internet. A discussion of pornography should also take place before an internet capable device is given.

4 Steps for Setting Your Child Up for Success*

  1. Model and teach healthy tech use & boundaries to your child - starting in elementary school

  2. Prioritize these 4 screen-free childhood essentials: sleep, in-person relationships, unstructured/unsupervised play, and time spent outside

  3. Provide a long runway to scaffold and guide your growing child towards self-directed, healthy tech use, viewing their missteps (and there will be missteps!) as learning opportunities

  4. Introduce tech slowly and intentionally, as your child needs it, not when they want it. What's the rush!?​

       *ScreenSense.org​

Articles About Giving Your Child Access to Addictive Tech

  1. "Introducing Tech Slowly" - ScreenSense

  2. "Keeping teens safe on social media: What parents should know to protect their kids" - American Psychological Association

  3. "Social Media, Dopamine, & Stress: Converging Pathways" - Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science

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Let's Help Our Kids Look Up & Connect More!

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