Anyway, after a recent incident of my frustrations with prolonged screen usage (the point at which I say "OK, you've been on long enough, you need to get off", and which they usually do respond to now), I realized that part of the reason they are on for extended times is they flit from one game to the next. I guess it's the equivalent of channel surfing on TV before the internet came along-you're not really actively watching anything, yet hours and hours get wasted sitting in front of the TV as you find one thing after another to watch, and sometimes you walk away thinking, hm, well, none of that was really worth watching. That gave me my idea for a new tactic-allowing screen time, but restricting it to one game at a time. When they are done with that one game, they need to do a non-screen activity first, before they can get back on (and not a 10 second non-screen activity...something of significant length of time). This seems to be a good balance, and sometimes, when they get caught up in that non-screen activity, they end up not going back to the screen entertainment at all! I haven't been restricting use by total time used or days on/off or anything lately, and this seems to be working in my quest to keep them from being on screens excessively!
Hopefully this will be a long term solution. It's not foolproof though, as I know they can easily spend HOURS straight playing Minecraft, but lately, they haven't been playing it much. I've dodged that bullet for now. But when they start up on Minecraft again, I think I might be OK with it as a once in a while treat. We'll see what happens if they start wanting to be on Minecraft every day though.
Hey, that's cool - I didn't know you could make tabs for different blogs! Good idea.
ReplyDeleteOne GAME at a time sounds like a reasonable way to manage screen time.
I wonder how your family is now? I'm an adult trying to cut down my own screen time. I have not had a TV in years, never did bother with a console and never got into smart phones but though I do someone meaningful things on the computer and tablet (creative writing and sharing that with the world and stay in touch with friends) sometimes I find myself playing Song Pop and Candy Crush and reading useless websites or watching way too much useless stuff on youtube. I hate Christmas so I'm looking to stay off facebook completely in December and MAYBE slowly reintroduce in January. My writing and proof reading will have to be an hour or two a day if I actually want it to be "worth" it to do it at all but apart from that I'm looking to only check my emails once daily. I skype with a friend about every four weeks but that I won't count. One thing that will be hard is that in summer I would take walks for an hour or two but winter is just too cold for me and though I read and scrapbook when I'm not on the computer that time is just missing. Even if I find something else to do OR just sit in front of the computer. I too want screens to contribute to my life, not consume it. There is so much more to do other than waste my time the way I have been.
ReplyDeleteWell, it's been a year since this post...and what we're doing now is 1 hour per day, after non-screen activity, plus all work done...Probably could stand to follow this rule myself, ans I find myself wasting away hours reading articles and comments on Facebook! I know I get sucked into games, so I've cut them out completely. I've thought about staying off FB too, or at least taking some time off, but it's one of the main ways I communicate with and stay in touch with family and friends...I did try to limit myself to 15 minutes at a time, which doesn't usually work. .I think I need to set a specific time period, like, only between 9-10pm. It would probably help to unfollow a number of pages so I don't see so many posts that drag me into reading...Good luck!
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