5 tips for overcoming your pandemic screen addiction
The first step is admitting you have a problem.
By Hannah Pitstick
Even before the pandemic, many Americans spent nearly half their days staring into a screen. Market research firm Nielsen found the average American logged nearly 12 hours of screen time with their televisions, smartphones, and computers every day in 2019.
And that number has likely gone up over the past year as a result of the massive shift to remote work, increased dependence on virtual gatherings, and the never-ending influx of news. People are more glued to their devices than ever, said Doreen Dodgen-Magee, Psy.D., a psychologist and author based in Portland, Ore. We feel like we re doing due diligence, when in reality it s creating extra, what I call ambient anxiety.
Jayne-Ann Young, principal of Queen Margaret College Wellington.
Schools have been dealing with smartphone use by students for the better part of a decade, so are they are necessity in a modern world, or a scourge that needs to be removed? Sarah Catherall reports. On a sunny Wellington lunchtime, students at Queen Margaret College are clustered on the school lawn, laughing and chatting. They’re making eye contact, they’re engaging, and they’re the things that principal Jayne-Ann Young spoke about when she told parents the night before about the reasons why the private girls’ school banned phones during school hours. Young’s voice boomed in the auditorium when she told parents what sparked the ban: a Tik Tok video, which went viral last year, showing a man committing suicide amid what appeared to be a cutesy video of kittens playing.