Digital Detox

Even before the pandemic, many Americans were suffering from “infobesity” or a technology and news overload. Setting safe and healthy digital boundaries should be a priority, especially as students return to school buildings and hopefully spend less time in online classrooms. As part of a digital detox, consider turning your phone screen black and white, keeping it in a different room while you sleep and taking 15 minute breaks from using it, gradually adding more time away from it and other screens over the course of several weeks.

Before discussing technology limits as a family, parents should examine their own behavior with electronic devices. Consider having a technology free dinner table (Decorate a shoe box to hold everyone’s silenced cell phones during meals.), setting down your device when someone speaks to you so you can focus on him/her, and having phones charge downstairs after family members go to bed. (Buy individual alarm clocks for everyone, along with a multi-device charging station. Place the latter in the kitchen or family room where everyone can dock his/her phone at night.) Designate certain parts of the day (during school hours or in the car, etc.) or zones of the house where phones cannot be used. To better accomplish this, try putting phones in airplane mode for the prescribed period of time.

Learn what apps your children like and why in advance of addressing the ways to use them safely. For example, adolescents should be taught to only express anger or criticism in person or during a voice conversation rather than doing so digitally. Apple Screen Time and Google’s Family Link are free and can restrict both general usage and time spent on individual apps. The American Academy of Pediatrics Family Media Plan is an online form for setting goals and limits regarding technology use. Moment and Space are each apps intended to help users find better phone/life balance and xTab is a Chrome extension, which establishes a maximum number of tabs that can be open at one time.

If you are concerned, use addiction criteria to evaluate your child’s relationship with his/her phone and/or video games. Does he/she get angry or anxious when you take it/them away?; Does he/she withdraw from social activities or events to use it/them?; and Does his/her hygiene, relationships or schoolwork suffer because of time spent on it/them? Researchers have found that dopamine production in the brain doubles during video game play and parents and guardians should observe boys in particular. Do they game almost every day and/or for extended periods (i.e., 3 to 4 hours at a time); become restless and irritable if they cannot play; game instead off doing homework; lose interest in real-life events; or sacrifice social activities and sports to play? Suspend video game usage if your child is having difficulty with self-control; and ensure that he/she balances high dopamine activities, like gaming, using Snapchat or watching TikToks, with low dopamine ones like baking, exercising, playing board games or putting together a puzzle.

Discuss expectations regarding the responsibilities that youth have to fulfill before gaming, how much time they can spend playing and which games are acceptable. (You can find parent control guides for various systems, including Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5 and Xbox One, at https://www.esrb.org/tools-for-parents/parental-controls/.) Keep game consoles in a central location and whenever possible encourage your children’s friends to play at your house. Before he/she asks for a new game or app, have your child look at reviews on Commonsense Media. If you are concerned about a certain game that he/she likes, sit down and uncritically watch him/her play before you have a discussion about it.

Talk about the pressure to reply to texts quickly. To combat this, suggest responding once an hour to all messages instead of constantly answering individual ones. Try to limit multitasking, which makes focusing on a single thing more difficult and is detrimental to face-to-face conversations. Reduce apps to only a few beyond telephone, texting and maps and remind youth about the 20-20-20 rule recommended by optometrists to reduce eye strain. After every 20 minutes of screen use, stare at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds. Signs that your child has a healthy relationship with screens are that he/she has a digital life that seems fun and positive; is engaged and learning in school; has hobbies and other interests; interacts socially with friends and family; and is both physically healthy and getting enough sleep.