In the shop, I loose count a number of customers who struggle to look up from their phones as I serve them. They just continue scrolling, tapping or even talking on the phone. It’s not just youngsters but all ages. Well apart from the oldies.
As I walk through the town I end up dodging those who have their eyes firmly fixed to their screens and don’t even look up to see where they are going. I use to carry on walking in a sadistic way so that they would bump into me and learn. Well of course not really learn and it was getting me way too negative and angry so I stopped that.
But kids don’t know any better especially if its all they see their parents doing. So if you want your children to grow up with their eyes pointing in the right direction we are all going to have to look at our own actions first.
You could go down the route of banning screen time set times. This could work if you fair about it and don’t make screen time too limited as otherwise, they will crave this elicit thing even more. Don’t forget to them its fun and exciting. It’s only when we get older we realise it’s not the only thing in life.
Also, make life interesting if you want them to be less screen dependant. What you have on offer will have to be damn more interesting and inspiring or brilliant for them to want to get involved and put down their screen. But don’t think that just by saying go and find something interesting to do they will magically find something more interesting than the screen. Us old fuddy-duddy parents were born in a non-gadget world. Where we played with other kids of all ages outside. We learnt from them and by just doing that you can find other things to do. Kids are now born in a gadget world where gadgets are used in every field of life. It’s so second nature that most the time we don’t notice them and kids are expected to be able to use them daily from a young age.
It really is a different age and although we cant change it, we can hopefully find a happy medium.
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