Screen-Free Sunday
Information for Parents
Did you know that a 2023 survey found that 91% of Australian children between the ages of 14-17 own their own smartphones? While research on digital device use for Australian children under the age of 14 is not available, research coming from the U.S. most likely reflects the conditions in Australia:
This is staggering. Given the amount of time children spend on these devices and the nature of what is being done with them, we are witnessing a wholesale transformation of the nature of childhood in a single generation. Unfortunately, this is not without significant consequences.
As far back as 2017, social scientist Jean Twengle noted in her article in The Atlantic: “Have
Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?”
“…it’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen [Gen Z] as being on the brink of the worst mental-
health crisis in decades. Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones.”
Sociologist Jonathan Haidt, in his recent book, “ The Anxious Generation ,” observed that digital devices are resulting in the decline of play-based childhoods, which addressees the need that children have for free space to play, take risks, learn to play with others. As a result, there has been a 134% increase in anxiety, 106% increase in depression, all since 2010. Over that same period in Australia, psychiatric emergency department visits increased in boys between the ages of 12-24 by 51% and 81% for girls.
We would strongly recommend you watch this presentation by Professor Haidt, which is followed by a discussion between him and Tristan Harris who featured in the Netflix documentary, “The Social Dilemma.”
We are not suffering from lack of awareness. Parents can see what’s happening to their children and they’re not happy. So do teachers. And guess what…so do the children.
The problem is that we are all caught in something called a “multipolar trap.” This happens when a group of people (even a society) engage in activities that end up being harmful to everyone collectively because if an individual choose not do those activities it ends up being harmful to him or her.
86% of parents say they have ground rules for screen time, but only 19% are able to stick to their rules all the time. As most parents can testify, children rightly see limitations of screen time as limits on their ability to socialise with their friends. That is the multipolar trap…”why can’t I use my phone when all my friends are?”
Sound familiar?
The only way out of a multipolar trap is through collective action. It’s when a group of people band together to change their individual behaviour and use to support of that collective to achieve that goal.
This is the objective of the screen-free Sunday Lenten sacrifice.
Let’s remember that Lent is a time of preparation and an opportunity to become closer to God. We do that by reflecting on those things, or activities, in this world that we are overly attached to. By abstaining from those things or activities, and through the discomfort that often results, we open ourselves to a greater communion with God.
For most of us, our screens are things we’re quite attached to.
The idea of a shared Lenten sacrifice is to create a collective effort such that abstaining from our devices becomes easier to achieve. The most important collective is the family. It is about having parents and children support one another in their individual efforts to abstain from their screens (let’s face it - many parents will find this sacrifice harder than their children). And the best way to support one another is come together in shared family activities. The sacrifice of the time we’d normally be in front of a screen can be filled with time at Mass, in family meals, playing games,
being in nature and connecting with friends.
While the family is the central collective, other families committing to a screen-free Sunday Lenten sacrifice can form part of an extended collective. Parents and children should reach out to their friends, discuss committing to a screen-free Lenten shared sacrifice as a group of families, and then spend time together. Allow the children to engage in free play without their devices while parents converse and enjoy each others company.
And for other parishioners who may not have children, or whose children are grown and have their own families, we might consider committing to a screen-free Sunday Lenten sacrifice as an act of solidarity. Doing so expands the collective effort and sends a message of love to our fellow parishioners that we are willing to share in their undertaking to improve our community through the happiness of their children.
We live in a world that requires the use of digital technology. Nothing we do will change that, nor should it be changed. What is important, and what the screen-free Lenten sacrifice is meant to do, is remind us that we are empowered to conform our digital devices to healthy and rightly order family and community life. And, by successive steps towards that goal we create actual experiences of what such families and communities look like.