Ralph Waldo Emerson

I've started limiting my family's screen time. No digital devices after 6pm on school nights. We've seen real benefits—more family conversation, less drama, better sleep. But it seems as though maybe my kids are falling behind their classmates, and becoming less popular, and I'm wondering are they pretending to not care they don't know the conversational references (which seem to have a half life of just over a minute). My daughter came home crying because she couldn't participate in a group project that required an app we don't allow. My wife says the world runs on technology. We can't prepare them for the future if we're going to go cold turkey. I know technology has incredible potential. I helped build some of it. But I also see what it does to attention, relationships, depth of thought. Are we protecting our kids or handicapping them?

58 votes

Does grief inevitably define us, or can we transcend its shadow?

1 vote