Why does sharing screen time feel like such a vulnerable move? My friend inquired around with a few women at her church, and also asked me, “what’s your daily screen time average?”
I felt my stomach lurch as I went to settings to look up my stats for the last few weeks. It’s weird the shame I feel about the use of a device so effective in helping me manage my household, document our life in photo, video, and words, communicate regularly with the people I love, and more. I guess the shame part doesn’t stem from any of those areas though, does it?
It’s the absent minded use I’ve been guilty of. The lazy thumb, scrolling along consuming little pieces of peoples lives like candy.
I can tell the difference in my emotions, of course, when I am making good decisions versus poor decisions with my little portal into the universe, but strangely enough I also feel it in my actual physical body.
When I overuse my devices, I do, actually, feel worse.
That consequence was enough before I was a mom, it helped keep me at least a bit in check. But as a mother, I see the consequences are much greater now.
Too much screen time is directly taking my attention away from my kids. The more time I’m here, the less time I have for looking them in their eyes while they chatter along to me about roly-poly’s or chocolate chip yogurt.
When my eyes are on my screen, they aren’t watching my children play, or being attentive to the needs of my household, and when my eyes are on my screen, my brain is tuned into whatever I’m doing there, instead of what’s actually going on around me. When my eyes are on my screen, they aren’t really seeing my children.
I desire for my children to grow up feeling really seen and wanted. In a world that’ll make you feel very small, I want them to know how important I believe they are. More important to me than the tyranny of the urgent. More important than that important thing I need to do on my device.
That hurt, of feeling less important than a device is… one I know well. Being second to a device is hard at 28, but is devastating at 8, or 10, or 12. I don’t want to repeat that pattern.
I remind myself, getting on my phone is like leaving the room.
Do I want to leave the room right now?
Often, I don’t want to leave the room. But I do need something else to stimulate me while I watch them do that cool move on the trampoline for the 7,890th time. Carrying books sometimes works for me, though I do find it difficult to be in and out of a story, so fiction doesn’t work for this, for me at least. But non-fiction I can jump in and out of a little more easily. Better than just a book, I find having pen and paper is what I want.
That list I keep meaning to make... that letter I keep meaning to start... that item that needs to be in my grocery cart... a note on that project I’m working on... it’s these types of things that seem to pop into my head, especially when I’m outside with the boys. A little notebook and pen on hand, I can jot things down as they pop up so I’m not carrying around to-do’s in my mind, increasing my mental burden.
Doesn’t having things to look at other than your devices children defeat the purpose of wanting to have your eyes up, and your life? Well, thank you, hypothetical person for the great hypothetical question. Honestly, no, I don’t really see it like that.
The point isn’t just that I’m physically looking away from my children (because that’s just... natural) as much as it is that I really feel like I’ve gone somewhere my children don’t understand when I’m on my devices. Whether I’m reading an article, responding to a text, or watching a viral reel, they don’t know where mom(‘s brain) went. With a book, or notebook in my hand... that’s something my children can grasp, and emulate.
I don’t even know where I’m going with all of this. Just spending my Sunday afternoon mulling it over as all the boys sleep.
