Have Your Family Try A “No Screen Day” & Put Away Electronics

Cathy and I were talking this morning about how people are so distracted by smartphones, tablets, etc.   It seems like we spend so much of our lives staring at screens and hardly looking at each other.  It's also not really considered quality family time either when all of you are staring at your smartphones, so my wife and I came up with the "No Screen Day" idea.

It's pretty simple.  Once a week we don't allow any screen involved activities for that day.   It's usually a weeknight.  We have dinner together like we usually do, and the rest of the night we stay off our phones, laptops, and tablets.

The scary thing is how hard it was to start.   My wife and I almost instinctively reach for our smartphones every few minutes.   There was a couple of times the first time that I caught myself staring at Facebook.

Our 5 year old didn't have that much of a problem.  He has a few learning game devices and he likes to play mario bros on the Wii, but he's happy to play with legos and cars and other things.   Which I hope will stay that way.  And that's basically what "No Screen Day" is all about, being a good example to our kids.

Also, when we go camping or on vacation, unless we are on a long car ride, no screens either.   I recently saw a picture of some teenagers sitting around a campfire playing on their phones.  Maybe I'm old fashioned, but that's just plain ridiculous.