So instead my general philosophy has been to set some limits on when the screens are available (they go away at night, at least for younger kids — and for everyone during the school year) and then just keep the kids busy doing a lot of non-screen things during the day. This naturally limits the time available.

This is easier said than done in winter, but this summer we’ve finally gotten the pool + hot tub combo working out in the yard. On any given “nice” (not raining) night we are often out there around 7:45/8 p.m. and aren’t back in the house until close to 9. As these are precisely the hours the kids would be zoned out watching YouTube videos, it’s kept at least some of that in check.

Of course, now that the Olympics are on I’m actually *trying* to find more screen time to watch it. Last night the 4-year-old had announced that he didn’t want to go in the pool because he’d had a swim lesson earlier. But around 8:00 it suddenly became urgent that we go, so I relented. He wasn’t the world’s best pool companion (he had a scrape on his foot, so after all that rigamarole to get out there he then didn’t want to have his foot in the water…) but the 12-year-old and 17-year-old sat in the hot tub and talked with me for a while. So that was still nice. I finally managed to watch some gymnastics from 9:45-10:45 p.m. after the little guy was down.

As for the 9-year-old…he’s now at sleep-away camp where he’ll have no screens for two weeks! I’m pretty sure they keep them busy enough that he might not even notice — but I’ll report back when I see him again.

In other news: We got a Polaroid-type camera for a party two years ago, and I hauled it back out to send printed photos to the 9-year-old at camp. He wanted me to hug his stuffed animals at night as though I were hugging him. So each day I take a photo of me hugging a different stuffy and send that in the mail. I sent him with addressed, stamped envelopes, so we’ll see if anything comes back to me…

This allowed for a natural experiment. What would change in my life if I didn’t put social media back on my phone?

I have not looked at Instagram or Facebook since June 3rd. I decided to go back on Twitter (mostly in a lurking capacity) this past weekend because it really is a good source for breaking news.

(I occasionally look at LinkedIn, and my business is still posting content there, but I don’t think anyone views LinkedIn as being an addictive sort of social media.)

So, what did change in my life? Well, my screen time tallies did not go down. My new iPhone is shinier and faster than my last one! What can I say — it’s more fun to use.

I quickly realized that I have a strong desire to scroll through something. In the absence of social media, this wound up being comments at the New York Times and on blogs. In the absence of Instagram and Facebook, I wound up looking through my own old photos a lot (which Apple assists with — its slideshow widget is quite good). I did more online shopping. Seriously. I spent a lot of time scrolling at Amazon, Nic + Zoe, NYDJ, Kut from the Kloth, etc.

Now, there is an argument to be made that the comments on blogs and the New York Times are more wholesome than those on Twitter, though I’m not sure that’s true. My own photos are less problematic than social media ones in terms of comparison, though again, not entirely. I wish I had appreciated how un-wrinkly I was in 2016 at the time. Shopping is…shopping.

So where does this leave us? Basically, reminding me that most of us waste some amount of time. The human desire to avoid boredom during time that is not otherwise spoken for is strong. Getting off social media mostly just changed how I wasted time. I don’t have a huge desire to get back on Insta/FB right now, and I may sign out of Twitter if the news calms down (if only) but I have not become massively more productive, much as I might wish that were true. Oh well!

In other news: Here’s a round-up of this week’s content!

Over at Vanderhacks I wrote about how we should “Choose how much news to consume,” perhaps “Take a spending pause” during the Prime day sales, and behind the paywall I wrote about how “Nothing is fun for the whole family” — but there are some things you can do to have adventures with a varied crew. If you’d like a daily dose of life strategies, please consider a free or paid subscription!

In the Before Breakfast podcast I talked about how “Magic happens in the mushy middle” and that “You can go a long way in a weekend.” Someone wrote me that she listened to that episode and booked a weekend away — excellent.

Over at the Best of Both Worlds Patreon community site, we’ve been covering advice for parents sending kids to sleep-away camp for the first time. This week’s episode was a mailbag one (recorded together in person!). Please give it a listen, and as always we welcome ratings and reviews.

We differ here. Sarah has decided to cut social media completely out of her life because she found it challenging to limit the time devoted to it — and in her busy life, there were things she’d much rather spend those minutes on (like reading 50 books a year and running 50 miles a week!). I tend to use social media more recreationally and go in and out of using different apps. There’s no right or wrong way — it’s about how it fits in with the rest of your life.

In the Q&A we discuss something related — how to find more time to read (this is often inversely correlated with recreational screen time…).

Please give the episode a listen, and as always we welcome ratings and reviews!

Back in the early 1990s, widely sharing a photo of someone doing something stupid would have required so many steps (have a camera with you; get the film developed; figure out a way to share it with more than friends and family) that most people would have thought better of it somewhere along the way.

But kids today are growing up in public. Anything you do can be documented and shared widely.

As part of our screen series at Best of Both Worlds, I interviewed Devorah Heitner for this week’s episode on kids and technology. Devorah is the author of Screenwise, which is available now, and the new book, Growing Up in Public, which you should immediately pre-order for fall (we will also remind people about the book and mention it again when it is out!)

Devorah shares how to communicate with the young people in your life about the perils and promises of technology. She talks about the importance of putting the relationship first, and how to handle situations when something goes awry. It is a fascinating topic, and I encourage anyone who’s parenting tweens and teens to give this episode a listen.

In the Q&A we give advice on getting more sleep to a listener who has a poorly-sleeping toddler and another baby on the way. Yep, things are going to be rough, but we have some ideas to make the situation better!

What policies do we set in our households and why? How does this change as kids get older? What has surprised us? (Kid group texts are a topic I hadn’t quite anticipated — they can be thornier than the internet or social media!) Sarah talks about how her family’s screen-free month went, and we talk about some positive aspects for kids of the digital world.

Please give the episode a listen! And stay tuned for the next two parts of the series as well. As always, we welcome ratings and reviews.