Screen-time for kids. It's a hotly debated topic.

Anybody that knows me knows that I won't and have never limited screen-time. I feel it hypocritical given that I work on my computer so I'm using it all day every day. I don't consider work an exception to screen-time limitations.

Why? Because computers are learning tools just as much as they are working tools. While I might be writing a book or posting on social media for work, that doesn't mean that the YouTube video one of my kids is watching, isn't equally beneficial to them. They had to read the title. They had to find the video. They have to understand what the person is saying. They have to know how to use the app.

The fear many adults have around screen-time comes from not growing up with it themselves. Life was different when I was a kid. But, I still remember multiple hour conversations on phones that were tied to walls. I still remember many adults with their noses stuck in newspapers or books. I still remember many people taking their phones off the hook or not answering them. I still remember social activity being optional. I still remember many people avoiding said social activity.

How we interact with each other has changed. How we connect to each other has changed. I don't spend 3 or 4 hours on a phone connected to the wall anymore, but I might spend that same amount of time chatting with a friend on Messenger. It's a conversation either way. The medium being used is irrelevant.

Frankly, by using Messenger I have to spell and formulate my thoughts in a written format. It's actually harder than talking on the phone. The challenge level went up not down.

The idea of limits comes from a fear of what the world is going to look like. We're trying to steer the next generation away from the thing that will be integral in their lives. They will use it every day, all the time, for all the things because that is simply where we are going. Being afraid of an unknown future is not an excuse to pass pain onto the next generation. Their lives are going to be different than ours were and that's okay. It's time to come to that acceptance.

I posted about this the other day; it's the fear of the unknown future and how it makes us actually want to go back in time. We want to get rid of tv's and all electronic devices. We want to go back to before all the technology happened. That's fear and pain being passed on. We're teaching our kids to have an unhealthy relationship with technology because we see it as bad and that makes us try to block it out. It's not their relationship with technology that's unhealthy, it's ours because we were wired differently.

The apps change. Social media will change. Mastodon probably won't be around forever. But the idea will remain. Gathering electronically on singular websites is the new way forward. This is how people will meet each other. This is how life will look. There will still be time and place for in-person gatherings, but much like the phone plugged into the wall, it too will be limited in its use. We don't like it because it's not what we grew up doing, but that doesn't make it bad it just makes it different. Change can be a good thing when we don't inject it with a bunch of pain and fear. It's time to stop being afraid of what our kids lives will look like and instead embrace the change that comes with evolution.

Love to all.

Della