SHOW NOTES

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Jean Rogers is the Director of the Children’s Screen Time Action Network, where she leads a coalition of practitioners, educators, advocates, and parents who collaborate on practical methods to reduce children’s time on screens and digital devices, mitigate the dangers, and preserve childhood in the digital age. Jean is the host of Action Network Live!, a webcast bringing experts to parents on how screens impact all aspects of child development. She writes a weekly blog and speaks widely to parents, teachers and activists, empowering them to implement simple solutions to a complex 21st century parenting challenge.

Jean earned Masters’ degrees in Education and Parenting Education at Wheelock College, where she took up the mantel of Susan Linn and Diane Levin, trailblazers in media literacy, play-based learning, and avoiding a commercialized childhood. Prior to working at the Action Network, Jean was a freelance marketing writer, illuminating products and services for nonprofit and business clients. She was also a music teacher, director of a large church school, and a college writing center consultant. Her greatest role is mother to 5 children.

BIG IDEAS

• The Social Dilemma is fantastic because it helps you understand that social media apps were designed for profit for the companies that designed, not for the benefit of the users (a good term because of the addictive nature of the apps).

• If you have preteens or teens, we encourage you to have them watch The Social Dilemma with you. They’ll understand more at the end, they’ll maybe see themselves or their friends in it or their cousins. They’ll understand it from the perspective of one of those ages. If you have young children, the film is really a cautionary tale. It’s something that if you watch it now you can prevent some of these things from happening.

• While we do have the children’s online privacy and protection act, that has not translated into the regulations for social media that you would expect, and kids are still able to scroll. They’re able to find things.

• For our kids, it’s so easy for them to believe everything that they see and for us to need to explain that not everything is real on the internet. Fake news and stories spread much faster than true ones.

LINKS & RESOURCES

• Where to connect with and find out more about Jean and the Children’s Screen Time Action Network:
Website
Facebook
Book: Kids Under Fire
Action Network Live

• Jean’s interview with Audrey and Lenore Skenazy on Action Network Live.

Happy Campers at Home: Navigating Summer with Children during COVID-19 from CCFC on Vimeo.

• “The Social Dilemma”

• Cyberwise

• “The Great Hack”

• Cal Newport

• Digital Wellness Collective

• Wait Until 8th

• Turning Life On

QUOTES

• Audrey: “I had heard that a long time ago about Steve jobs, that his kids weren’t allowed to have iPads.”

• Audrey: “These tools that have been created are starting to erode the social fabric of how society works.”

• Jean: “The Children’s screen Time Action Network is a project of Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood.“

• Jean: “Creating routines reduces stress.”

• Jean: “I think one of the things they say in the film is, it’s not like a bolt of lightning that happens. All of a sudden your kids are converted to this world. It’s a gradual change in their behavior. And so we don’t want to wake up someday and not know our kids.”

• Jean: “There are studies that say, we learn a lot more. We absorb a lot more by reading the real book.”

• Jean: “You can’t change it. That only the industry can change it, but you can change what’s going on in your own home.”

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS EPISODE, YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE…

Ep. 156: The Tech Solution with Dr. Shimi Kang

Ep. 148: Connecting with Nature & Each Other During COVID with Ariella Rogge

Ep. 144: Raising Happy, Durable Kids in the Digital Age

Ep. 116: Why We Need to Unplug and Connect with our Families

ONE SIMPLE THING

This week’s One Simple Thing is one from Happy Campers: 9 Summer Camp Secrets for Raising Kids Who Become Thriving Adults.

MY FAVORITE

Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport

I think we’re only scratching the surface on the damage caused by our current technology habits. As I argued in Digital Minimalism, these tools are both powerful and indifferent to your best interests. Until you decide to adopt a minimalist ethos, and deploy technology intentionally to serve specific values you care about, the damage it inflicts will continue to accumulate.
-Cal Newport, Do Smartphones Make Us Dumber?

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Audrey