Plus, it’s a basic math problem. There are limited hours in a day, and every hour spent scrolling on social media or watching YouTube videos takes time away from what I see as more valuable activities, even if it is just sitting alone with one’s thoughts.
Instead, the emphasis in our family is on creative play, physical exploration, and face-to-face interactions. Childhood is seen as a time to develop practical life skills and get plenty of sleep and exercise. It’s a chance to get comfortable with boredom, while learning when and how to focus on important tasks. By the end of it, I hope my sons have a rich repository of childhood memories that will someday make them smile, laugh, and possibly even cringe.
I’m not anti-tech. My entire career as a writer and editor has been enabled by the Internet, and I wouldn’t want to go back to a time without it. But great tools don’t automatically make great toys, and I want my kids to learn the difference. Nor is my goal to shelter them. My kids are not naïve; we talk regularly about fraught, complicated topics that would likely surprise many families.
Being a digital minimalist parent can feel lonely, and there are times when I feel badly that my kids are the ones who get singled out for my unorthodox approach. “Conformity is overrated,” I tell them jokingly, but that is small consolation when you are the only kid going into tenth grade without a smartphone. My oldest son wants a phone badly because everyone else has one, but that’s not a compelling enough reason to buy him one. I stand firm, reiterating that he won’t get one before 16 (and then will have to pay for it himself). This recommendation comes from Dr. Jean Twenge, who puts smartphone ownership on par with having a driver’s license, an analogy I love and cite far more often than my son would like to hear.
