Are you weary of digital devices? Are you concerned about kids and teens so absorbed in smartphones? If so, and if you have children, how are you managing their exposure to digital devices?

The simplest approach is to impose a strict screen time, and add penalty if your children cannot abide by the rules. But except a lot of – almost daily- bickering to implement it, because the chances are, your children, especially when they are 12 or older, hate screen time nor agree with the overall policy. You may find yourself arguing with them longer than the actual screen time. And the problem is, after all those painful back and forth that consume both you and your kids, you may have actually ended up disagreeing even more. You try to make the case that too much screen time is not beneficial for them, but your kids don’t understand – or rather don’t want to understand – why. Why are you so against cell phones? Why are they so bad? My friends spend hours and hours on them. They are still good kids, or are you telling me that there is something wrong with them? Why on earth reading books is great but playing on smart phones is bad?

As it turns out, digital natives have little reservations toward using digital devices, no matter how much opposition they get from their own parents. Friends and what they see around them  (e.g. at school where almost all the girls are Instagrammers, and at sports practice during which waiting parents are glued on screens) are their guideline – everyone else uses it a lot, so why not me? You are the minority and anomaly, mom. 

So anti-cell phone parents are put in a difficult position to prove their theory, when the majority of the society isn’t helping them prove it. Well, of course there are emerging science and empirical evidences when you are talking about the extreme. There are now plenty of studies about detrimental exposure to digital devices such as cyber bullying, inappropriate use of social media that leads to unwanted outcomes such as crimes or depression, or addiction to video game.

But I am not letting my kid get to that level of exposure, to begin with. I am talking about how to justify limiting a teen’s screen time less than three hours per day, instead of six. I am talking about how to letting them understand why they need to do more than just playing on a phone and doing homework when they come home. I don’t care what they do – go out and play outside (which is so yesterday to my dismay), play a board game, read, draw or cook. But it looks like none of them particularly interest children more than screens these days.