This is another in a series of essays on device and screen management last year, in 2016 and in 2014, Trying to keep up with both the changes we see in screen content and access modalities, platforms and devices as well as the changing needs and desires of our kids.
And there you have it,
Life happened. Despite all efforts to limit screen time, ensure quality content, negotiate on various screen plans and try to keep up with the shifting sands of what my teenage boys are accessing, two events came at us sideways since March. One is a consequence of our less than normal lives of drifting about the planet perpetually nomadic as expatriates, the second was (and still is) the event known variably as 'the pandemic', Covid, Corona, C19, ergo the Virus. I'll call it Covid, because a corona is a rainbow ring of gaseous plasma around the sun (or a beer), C19 is too science-like and a bit contrite and 'the pandemic' gets one's heart beating faster in a bad way.
We lead international lives and this Covidic summer we left Yangon, Myanmar our home for 4 years at the end of an international posting and hopped across to Korea, skipped over the big pond (Pacific) to western Canada, hunkered down in the province of Alberta for 2 weeks quarantine had a visit with a friend or 13 or 14, then moseyed over to Toronto and skadaddled across the other big pond (Atlantic) to Switzerland where we find ourselves settling in close to Geneva in France. Covid quarantine robbed us of 2 weeks in Canada, and with uncertainty and different stages of 'reopening' travelling about for visits was not in the cards this time, friends being responsibly cautious as to who could walk in the front door... and there we were like aliens in a way, landing from a different planet such as the other side of the world might be.
As with many of us with teens, hand held screens have been central to our children's lives since the emergence of the iPad, the first and only hand-held web-enabled device accessible then for middle class kids all over the world fast forward to now when kids as young as 9 sport smart phones with more computing power than I had in a computer in my first job. This over the course of 10 years, 2010 - 2020; my kids are now 14 and 15.5yrs old... not hard math.
Our kids, and so we as parents are the pioneers of this new high speed connectivity everywhere modality of entertainment, communication, education, networking, artistic creation, connection it spans so many aspects of modern-day life. For my parents it was television... pshwaah I say, that was kindergarten stuff, now we're in the post-grad school of dealing with media and its content, and supporting our kids to make good choices; back in the day the dinner table debate was whether to mute the adverts during Bewitched or MASH or Hogan's Heros, the Flintstones, Sesame Street, or not... ;-) -- easy street.
March 18, 2020... that was the day it all changed for us. The day my teenage sons stayed home from school and being on screens for obscene amounts of time became legitimized as the online classroom went live. This was in Myanmar, in Yangon an emerging city still with not a lot of opportunities for teens, distant from beach or mountains for weekend trips, and a climate that drives you indoors to air conditioned luxury and your high-speed internet connection. It stayed that way for the months of #stayathome through pre-monsoon which is easily the worst time of year when it has been dry for months and the heat steadily builds, farmers burn off their crop stubble, the air is 45C and brown. Then the rains came in June and with them came the end of school. While it has to be said their British international school did a stellar job with the online classroom, even when 95% of the teachers absconded back to their home countries (or some to tropical islands in Thailand or Cambodia), they barely skipped a beat and launched into online learning full on, full-time.
Any home screen-limiting policies went out the window that day and I think for many parents, while relieved that school continued it was a bit of a two-sided coin; on the one hand their kids were being schooled and on the other their kids were being further inculcated into their various other worlds. Minecraft, Fortnite, Twitch, YouTube, Instagram that's what mine are into...if you can't say what yours are into then probably it would be good to find out. The usual axiom if you want to curb a behaviour is to attend to your own same behaviour first; you can't tell someone to stop smoking if you're a smoker and likewise with screens. What Covid brought was a denial of any strategy to put down our devices, when parents too were at home to work and everyone was on their screens and often at night depending on where your time zone landed you. I am working on an online Doctorate programme and much admin for my Wellness business is online. Am I on a screen too often. Definitely.
We were in our last weeks in Yangon, a 4 year posting coming to an end. While the 'stayathome' ended in mid-May and we left at the end of June, monsoon had arrived and so our departure was a bit soggy and sad. I blogged about our 5,4,3,2,1 trip across Asia and the Pacific it was quite a trip, there are pictures there too ;-)
We arrived on continent number 2, North America and found ourselves in a 2 week quarantine, of course with high speed internet. The online fun continued and we had a huge extended back-yard in the adjacent walking paths in Calgary, Alberta. We all took turns going for covid-safe but covert solo masked walks in the brilliant early summer sunshine, Canadian Rockies beckoning, Alberta blue skies stretching out far, full moon shining absolutely beautiful. Wearing masks outdoors still has me baffled. The rest of the time in quarantine... you guessed it, the boys (and me) were on our screens. Crazy stuff, never ends. We didn't travel much in Canada on this trip, normally we go on a visit-orgy to friends across the west but this year, as things were just starting to re-open it wasn't the time to be staying with friends. At ages similar to mine (57) many are caring for aging parents or were planning on visiting them after a long absence due to lock-downs or lock-ins and couldn't risk having us around. Pity though since we hadn't been to Canada for 4 years and have friends scattered hither and yon in western Canada with great lives and are fun to visit... you know who you are. Our last visit with you was when we moved from Kathmandu after 3 years there, who knows when the next one will be.
A notable exception was stay at my great friend Karin's place in Banff, never felt welcomed as much as I feel there. And on this occasion again her door was open for me and the boys. We had a great few days in Banff, did 5 hikes and had spectacular weather. It may have been a bit of a shock for the boys, from being screen-bound for months suddenly we were free and out in the Rocky Mountain alpine.
I admit that the general lethargy of covid inspired couch time combined with travelling with 2 teens who were reticent anyway to visit yet another friend of Dad's who they didn't remember but of course remembered them, and who I think were tired from their school year meant that inspiration and enthusiasm had to come from one source... moi. And I was tired too. The cumulative busyness required to organize the trip and leave my flat, my business, the few solid friendships, stress around the unknowns we had been facing with the departure paradigm for many months funneled as we got closer to the end, and an awareness that the coming move was going to require considerable energy reserves as well meant that we were okay hunkering down and we just didn't travel. Missing friends but resting and readying for re-establishing in a new place yet again.
Our final leg in mid-August was to Europe, the third continent of our journey. It took us across Canada via Toronto (we didn't stop) and onward to Switzerland though we are settling in France just across the border from Lake Leman and Geneva.
The Swiss had just released their first list of 'banned' countries and mercifully Canada was not on it. Goddess bless Canadians for behaving themselves, masking when asked and being respectful and responsible enough to curb the curve for the most part, at least enough to bring the numbers into a statistically acceptable place. The screen dream continues in travel and the boys transcontinental travel is now about making sure they have internet access and the devices are fully charged! It is on their first trip to Ecuador in 2008, ages 4 and 6 in an effort to keep them awake at Schipol airport until the 11pm KLM 13hr flight to Quito I gave them a game boy each. Indeed I was the one who tipped them into the hand-held screen rabbit hole. All my fault ;-).
Habits have settled in. For example my eldest (15) started watching streams on twitch.com in Edmonton in July where for entertainment 1000's of people watch gamers doing what they do best... game play for hours and hours... My son has seized the day and 'hatllama' was born and now he is a streamer too... (cut to Supertramp 'nothing but a dreamer' right?), check him out, tell your kids, he broadcasts on twitch.com at 7:30pm (Central European Time) nearly nightly. My hope is that he is happy doing this, and he seems to be... and then my hope is that he will start to make some money from this, chalk it up as a success, and move on; it takes up a lot of his evening! His 'following' is growing slowly. But now he HAS to be on screen at 7:30pm so homework and dinner revolves around it (eyes rolling).
My youngest (at 14) has become obsessed with YouTube though to give him credit he seems to be watching some fairly intellectual content at least of late... he did go through a phase of US-origin brain numbing content which was quite distressing. Rather than go out and play, they go to their rooms and screen despite urgings to the contrary... it's all a bit worrying and my eldest son's PE teacher on his initial assessment says his cardiovascular fitness (and flexibility) need improvement.
So it's not all bad news about devices and screen time. I've been poking around at my basic premise that screens are evil and kids need clear guidance to reduce their screen time... turns out I'm not entirely correct. The recent report from Commonsense media 'Tweens, teens, tech and mental health: Coming of age in an increasingly digital, uncertain and unequal world' suggests that it is more the content and quality of the media kids are accessing than the amount of time they spend on their screens. I think we all have experienced the phenomenon of not knowing what our kids are talking about, and for sure they are absorbing a huge amount of content we know nothing about. Try as I do to keep up, dinner table conversation between my sons escapes me entirely sometimes. Monitoring content for quality is another issue and discriminating between what is quality and what is not can be hugely divergent between the middle-aged father and his 2 adolescent sons. What is interesting is that we all zoned out to junk TV and its advertising and so I wonder is some of what they do the same as that? Should I worry?
What is of concern of course is the amount of time spent indoors, the amount of time eyes straining to look at small back-lit screens, the bent-neck syndrome that structurally closes the esophagus. In the Wellness work I do this area is where the 'Spirit' element resides (5 Element theory), where self-esteem, self-confidence and self-worth are seated and certainly as many critiques agree these are areas that are affected in young people today likely because of too much time spent online. Not to mention how the forward bending head, means you go around looking downward not upward and outward, not aware of your surroundings and what is going on. And when you meet people your eyes are not meeting theirs, yours are looking down, and maybe theirs are too, kinda sad when you think about it.
Covid then has put the kaybosh on my efforts to get screen-time under control during #stayathome in Myanmar or in quarantine and in a cautious Canada we were kept indoors and online more than I ever wanted during our time there. Now we have done the Atlantic hop to the France/Suisse border region, newcomers and without friendships in their new schools the boys are finding it hard to break into established social circles. They find easier social solace in adjusting their lives to when their friends in Myanmar, Japan, Australia (or closer, in the UK) are online and free to game or message, or talk on discord.com. Who can blame them right?
Though sort of concomitant there is a certain laziness that has crept in as well, it is easier to go online than go for on a bike ride... and we all know that the less you use a muscle (for example) the harder it is to get that muscle active and pumping again. My sons were long-time in the tropics and too long in cities at a critical age, adapted to the slower pace, and then the heat and rain and less active opportunities in urban Yangon gradually wound down their energy and drive to get into sports. Now here where people are up and at 'em, out biking and hiking and climbing, etc...(and ski season is coming) there is a distinct preference to stay indoors and online even when the sun is shining which is a great pity given we are located on the slopes of the Jura mountains in France and within sight of the French and Swiss Alps.
Anyway, change is the only constant and certainly this change and in all our children this time of their lives is one of incredible change so 'this too shall pass' and we will see what the future holds for them, because it is coming fast. My advice? Know what your kids are doing online, know what content they are browsing, know who they are gaming with, remind them that balance between downtime, screen time, physical exercise, family time needs to be in their thinking, check out their posture and act if you see things going awry. This phase too shall pass and it is only a question of good shepherding them through because after this... they are largely on their own and hopefully will have absorbed some of what you gave them from a place of love.
