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How many hours do you and your family spend staring at a screen each day?
The answer is probably going to be an uncomfortable number and although it is hardly your fault as you are simply going with the flow and making use of all the technology that is available to us in our modern lives, you can do something to free up your screen time.
Here is a look at some ways to put your digital life on temporary hold while you enjoy some analog activities that are a lot of fun and even allow you to share some quality time together as a family, talking to each other and interacting rather than texting.
It’s time for a tech break
The most obvious question to ask yourself is are you ready for a well-earned tech break?
Plenty of us spend a good part of our waking hours each day interacting with technology and the idea of switching off and walking away probably doesn’t even occur to you at first until you step back and realize that you are taking far too much of your life up staring at a screen.
It is definitely time for a break if you get to the point of suffering from Computer Vision Syndrome, which is a repetitive stress injury relating to your eyes. It is also a scenario where your cognitive functions are being overworked to keep up with the data you are trying to process.
If you see yourself somewhere in that description, it’s definitely time for a tech break.
Back to basics with some family game time
No, we are not talking about video games here, as that would be just another screen time experience.
A good way to unwind and have some family fun together would be to unplug the tech, put the phones out of reach and arrange to play some tabletop games.
Board games have stood the test of time as a great form of entertainment and if you haven’t had a games night for a while or at all before, you will probably end the evening with a big smile on your face and everyone will be setting the next date to do it again, for a tech-free family fun evening.
Small steps
The ultimate aim of doing something like arranging an activity that doesn’t involve technology is to reduce your reliance on gadgets and bring your technology addiction down a notch or two, which would be no bad thing for most of us.
As with a diet, if you go for broke and try to cut everything down to size in one giant step, there is more chance that you won’t manage to maintain the discipline to make a meaningful long-term difference.
The answer if often to take small steps and claim little victories along the way, which is the strategy to try if you want to cut down the amount of time you spend each day using tech.
Try things like turning your phone off before you sit down for dinner and once you get into the habit of a no-tech period of rest, you can up the digital detox period to a couple of hours each day.
You will be amazed what a difference it could make and even a few hours of resting your eyes and your brain from the tech onslaught could make a big difference to you and your family.