Play versus screen time
And the Screens that eat children
I’ve just finished ‘Screens that eat children’ by Ross Parker, a book he kindly sent to myself, Lottie and Mark for discussion as part of our #edureading book discussion group (See details below).
Whilst the book was a rather jumbled mixture of different genres and styles, it touched on, and explored meaningfully a number of really interesting things relating to screen time and responsible use.
He outlined for example a letter about sex, that presumably he delivered to his children. Exploring pornography, masturbation and other such ‘tricky topics’ - including a request that your child could respond via ‘return mail’ or by asking a question which seems like a cute touch.
Then, the author Ross suggests that TV viewing is a rather mindful and comparatively zen-like media diet compared to more multitasking-encouraging technologies. He advocates for a return to shared film and TV viewing as likely many of us grew up doing. Which I mean, I’ll take as a parent currently home-bound with a young toddler whose interest in TV sky-rockets when he’s ill. Any chance to justifying and approve this system in our own home is welcomed.
I’ve been rather influenced by writing of Jocelyn Brewer who goes by ‘DigitalNutrition’ that provides a rather balanced view on the whole thing. Which as the name suggests views having a rather balanced diet as key to screens.
Now the simple thinking would say that we have a polarity between screens and ‘play’, ignoring that the major way that many young people play is online. But of course the unstructured play prompted in childcare centres is different to that found online. Perhaps with supervision being the primary difference.
Most recently I’ve enjoyed a leisurely early evening where myself and my 2 yo wandered down the hill, with two tiny armfuls of trucks and diggers, sat digging in a curb side dirt like before cheers-ing dandelions and playing fetch with a neighbours dog. We returned home hours later, wet to the ankle and breathless, ate a cold pizza dinner (lovingly prepared by his super mum, my super wife), before running the bed routine and heading off to sleep.
Now this of course was lovely, but basing an educational philosophy around it is unlikely to work. Routine, and structure do most of the heavily lifting in the lives of young people. It’s only by creating this edifice of routine that we can venture into unstructured play. Moving away from screens doesn’t make open play of this sort more likely, necessarily, and nor the inverse.
Life is about balance.
Having said that, my phone currently looks like this;
As one of the tips within the book was to set your phone to grayscale - except when I look at my Black and white screen it kinda looks like colour to me, and I’m rather convinced if you were to apply ‘black and white’ filtered goggles to someone, there brain would work it out and re-add colour. I feel that’s happening to me already.
And my phone use has not slowed despite my MacIoS looking phone from the old days. Perhaps I’m just that addicted, or, now hear me out, perhaps I kinda like learning from my screen…
Anyway, I better ‘go touch grass’ now.
Is the play versus screen time dichotomy useful? And where do you find your balance?
References
Parker, R. (2023) Screens that ate children. Self published.
Running Word Count (the second 100,000): 34,511