Screen time leads to boredom?

I’ve had several parents ask how they can help their child focus more during instruction. One simple answer (notice I didn’t say easy) is limit/eliminate screen time to decrease boredom and increase engagement.

In his book, The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in its Proper Place, Andy Crouch explains how the short term solution of a screen to distract or entertain a child creates a bigger problem of desensitization to the real world and decreased focus.

The use of visual technology, even educational apps, “fills a screen with a level of vividness and velocity that does not exist in the real world-or only very rarely…It is purposefully edited to never require too much concentration or contemplation; instead, it grabs our attention and constantly stimulates our desire and delight in novelty.” Thus instructional time in the classroom, review time at home, leisure time outside must compete and often loses to the habit of exciting technology.

So power down, fill up their time with conversation, observation, creativity, reading, and play, and watch their attention grow!