Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Make the Most of Extra Pandemic Screen Time: Keep Entertainment In Check!

Our family has an enormous amount of free time due to canceled activities  during the COVID-19 pandemic. My wife and I are no longer like passing ships shuttling kids between sports practices, music concerts, school events, church activities and more. Even though we are missing friends and activities, we have found the extra time to be a gift, enjoying relaxed, less stressful evenings and weekends together. We especially cherish the extra time with our college daughter who is once again at the dinner table. We all spend more time on walks, playing games, doing puzzles, completing house projects, reading and of course, time with entertainment technology, social media and reading the latest news.

Despite all the extra time we still work to keep a healthy balance with our use of entertainment technology. We limit the amount of shows and movies we watch, the amount of time playing video games and time consuming social media and news. We have increased the amount of entertainment screen time per day by an hour--from about 90 minutes per weekday to around two and a half hours--but still have “guardrails” in place. We continue to use Apple Screen Time Restrictions to limit the time spent on non-educational technology. Rather than have unlimited access, our kids have an hour for non-violent video games like Minecraft and an hour for Netflix. Our high school kids also have 30 minutes a day for social media. We also consider the content on the screen--whether or not it is engaging vs. mindless entertainment--and make exceptions to our guidelines as necessary.

Perhaps you haven’t set up any guardrails and much of your free time while sheltering in place is consumed by entertainment technology, social media & news. It’s not too late to make some changes! Years from now when things are back to “normal” (and you have a fully booked calendar), it would be great to think back to this time as something that brought your family closer together, rather than something that was simply endured. Make the most of it now!

You may also want to check this article on Screen Time in the Age of Coronavirus from another one of my favorite resources, Common Sense Media.

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