Screening Our Future, the Bergen County initiative to control our children’s technology usage, has, ironically, gone viral on social media. We are receiving positive feedback to our campaign from respondents around the world. Clearly, this issue touches a very sensitive nerve and our community feels strongly that this is one of the major parenting challenges we all face today.
Many parents have reached out to me expressing that the crux of the problem lies with parents, not children. These adults, in a brutally honest and vulnerable fashion, are admitting that they themselves struggle with technology. How can we expect our children to behave any differently when the adults in their lives are mired in many of the pitfalls of recreational technology?
Our community statement focused on four areas. Three of these areas—what age to begin accessing a smartphone, filters and monitoring and overuse—were about our children. We have provided plenty of practical tips, technical devices and guidance manuals that can support parents in initiating these norms for their children. The fourth area, however—modeling behavior by controlling our own usage—may be the most difficult. It is also the area where, unfortunately, we have the fewest resources.
I have heard the argument that we do not need to provide guidance in this area. Adults should be able to take responsibility for their own actions. I think this argument can actually undermine our attempts to change the culture of technology usage in our community. Changing ingrained habits is always difficult. How many times have we committed ourselves to new resolutions, only to find ourselves struggling to maintain changes for the long term? When those habits are addictive in nature, the change becomes even harder. So transforming our relationship with technology will require a concerted effort.
Cal Newport, in his new book, “Digital Minimalism,” thoughtfully and thoroughly addresses this challenge. Newport, an associate professor of computer science at Georgetown University, argues that we need to be deliberate in our usage of technology so that we can live happier, more meaningful lives.
He lists some of the harm we are inflicting upon ourselves “from the exhausting and addictive overuse of these tools, to their ability to reduce autonomy, decrease happiness, stoke darker instincts and distract from more valuable activities.” Newport describes the factors that create this behavioral addiction. He also points out that we often use the very real benefits of technology as an excuse to continue to rationalize the inordinate amount of time we spend on social media. For example, we may find interesting and educational articles on social media, or feel connected to family overseas. An intellectually honest cost-benefit analysis, especially one that keeps in mind the latest scientific research on the hidden ways that technology is damaging to us, reveals that our technology usage is quite harmful.
Many of us try to make small changes or adjustments in our social media usage. Newport feels that this approach is insufficient to create and maintain change. He argues that we should start by developing a philosophy of technology usage. The philosophy that he recommends is what he terms digital minimalism. This is “a philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else.” To cite one example of this approach, I enjoy the political articles that I find when I scroll through social media. There are plenty of apps today that can deliver the specific types of news analysis that I am looking for in a targeted fashion, thereby saving me plenty of time and avoiding the negative aspects of social media such as the toxicity surrounding many political discussions. The book offers a step-by-step approach to achieving digital minimalism, starting with his suggestion of a 30-day digital detox.
In a section called Practices, he gives guidance on various systems and routines that can be used in the process of controlling the technology in one’s life. This section may resonate particularly for Torah-observant Jews. We live a lifestyle where we self-regulate many aspects of our lives to enrich and ennoble our day-to-day routines. Creating rituals, routines or boundaries for ourselves in various areas of life is a practice that is very comfortable for us.
I have been inspired to think more carefully about my use of technology since reading his book. I used to check my phone far too often by habit. I now leave my phone in my desk most of the day. I find myself more focused and less distracted, able to be far more present in the moment than when I was constantly checking my phone.
The book is a worthwhile read for anyone thinking carefully about their approach to technology. We all need to become more thoughtful and deliberate about how we use technology and I hope that this book can serve as one resource in this area. Not only will we be the better for it, our children will now have parents who model appropriate usage of technology and can now help them find an appropriate balance of technology usage in their own lives.
Rabbi Daniel Alter is head of school at The Moriah School.
