“See this?” a friend and father of five asked over breakfast at a local diner last week, pointing to an app on his phone. “There!” he said matter-of-factly, as he hit a large “pause” icon on the screen. “I just turned off the WiFi for my entire house!” We laughed, as he admitted, “I should be getting a call in about two minutes.”

Every parent—especially in this most unusual year—can identify with this dad’s desire to hit the “pause” button on screens. Every family, to some extent, is wrestling with the question, “What are the appropriate limits for media use?” The question gets to the heart of Level 4—Family Culture—of your family’s Trinity House, our focus for the 4th week of each month. 

There are plenty of good books, articles, and videos offering strategies and guidance on defeating screen culture—check out a few of our favorites in the Toolkit below. But for us, there’s one defining reality: we can focus all we want on monitoring and limiting screen use, but until we create robust real world alternatives, our family will always slip back into screen culture.

We all know families who have that “special something” about them that cements their bonds in such a fun way. There’s the camping family, the farm family, the community service family, the sports family, the music family, the outdoorsy family, the family that’s constantly hanging out and cooking with extended family and friends, the DIY family, the travelling family… The list is endless. Many families are a combination of several of these types.

But today, there are also many families who aren’t developing any of these real world cultures. They eat, sleep, work or study, and do screentime. They don’t put in the work to create a culture for their family to engage in together, so getting lost separately in a virtual world of distracting entertainment just happens.

Why isn’t it enough to just turn off the screens? Haven’t kids always been left to their own devices to create an imaginary world of play? There are at least two reasons why it’s not enough to just tell your kids to think of something else to do. One is that kids today have lost a lot of their innate creativity due to having been hard-wired on consumer entertainment. They need guidance to learn how to develop real-world interests and hobbies.

But we also want more for our families than just individual hobbies and pursuits. We want to bond and enjoy the good life together, because the deepest enjoyment of culture is in sharing it with those you love. By creating a real-world family culture with its associated activities, we can focus both on developing individual gifts and enjoying family time.

Nature, music, cooking, books, pets, travel, sports, hobbies – as we bring them to life together, we get a front-row seat to watch our children’s unique gifts develop and flourish along with the interpersonal communion we share with them.

“What are the appropriate limits for media use in our home and what other types of culture should we put in its place?” If only answering that question was as effortless as our friend’s app, where we can simply hit “on” or “pause”! Instead, this is a complex and personal question that calls for a courageous and persevering response.

We as parents have what it takes to reduce and even defeat the multi-trillion-dollar “digital attention economy’s” influence in our homes. We have something that the tech industry’s best algorithms don’t: we are beloved by God andwe reflect the Holy Trinity’s personal love, attentiveness, and sacrifice to our kids. At the end of the day, don’t forget this: no Xbox, tablet, or smartphone will ever be able to give your kids what they most need.

But in order to effectively exercise our power to reflect God to our children, we need prayer to be in touch with him. Cognizant of what’s at stake—the potential of a simple screen to deliver valuable tools about our faith or academics, on the one hand, or, on the other, unprecedented exposure to addictive distraction and life-altering evil—we would do well to spend a good long time on our knees, patiently waiting on the Lord’s guidance.

Ironically, the very thing we most need—silence to be able to follow the Lord’s lead for our lives—is the very thing most under attack in the digital attention economy. For the sake of our families, we must learn to sit still and focus on the Lord. 

“Without silence,” writes Cardinal Robert Sarah, “God disappears in the noise. And this noise becomes all the more obsessive because God is absent. Unless the world rediscovers silence, it is lost. The earth then rushes into nothingness” (The Power of Silence).
Heaven in Your Home Toolkit

From Catholic and evangelical perspectives, respectively, check out Dr. Michael Horne’s The Tech Talk: Strategies for Families in a Digital World and Andy Crouch’s The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place.

Soren’s column, “In Praise of Digital Minimalism” is a summary of some key points in Cal Thomas’  excellent Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World.

In “A Powerful Prayer Before Logging on to the Internet” at Aleteia, Philip Kosloski points us to a beautiful prayer written by St. Thomas Aquinas. 

Yikes. “When we look at the typical screen time that a 15-23-year-old is experiencing,” observe David Kinnamen and Mark Matlock in this recent Family Life podcast episode, “How Are Screens Influencing Us?“, “it’s about 2,700/2,600 hours a year. Now, we asked them…and tried to look at how much spiritual content they’re taking in. The average teenager is taking in about 153 hours of spiritual content [a year].”

In “Four Steps to Beat the Screen” for Columbia, Soren writes, “If we hope to limit the screen time of our children, we have to be willing to put down our own phones and laptops to spend time talking, listening and doing things together.”

“Why Our Screens Make Us Less Happy” (TED talk) by psychologist Adam Alter offers a good overview of the impact of screen-time.   

Mike and Alicia Hernon of The Messy Family Project have a helpful podcast episode, “Screens and Your Child.” “It is our job as parents to help our children learn to use these screens in a way that is beneficial for their physical, social, and emotional development,” they say. They also discuss “why limiting screens is actually more of a challenge for parents than for children.” 

Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains is a powerful read, particularly from the standpoint of how instant gratification is undoubtedly affecting our ability to sit with the Lord in silence. “What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation,” Carr writes. “Whether I’m online or not, my mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” 

Enjoying the weekly Heaven in Your Home Letter in your inbox? Share it with a friend and encourage them to sign up to receive this weekly boost of inspiration and practical tools! Signing up takes just a few seconds at www.trinityhousecommunity.org.

Next Week…

What’s new on Level 1—Faith Life—of your Trinity House? Next week’s Sept. 1st Heaven in Your Home Letter will focus on Faith Life, and we’re eager to hear from you—whether it’s a question, a challenge your family is facing, a story, a link to a resource, testiomonial, or prayer request. Just drop us a line at contact@trinityhousecommunity.org with what’s on your mind!

Testimonial

“Your apostolate is so important. I know you are aware of its significance and don’t need me to remind you of it, but it has become increasingly evident over the past few months how much the family is under attack. I am so thankful for the work you are doing.” – Adam Arehart, Director of Evangelization and Adult Faith Formation, St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church, Arlington, Va.  

Please Join Us In Prayer

• For all families in their use of technology, that they may do all things to the glory of God; 
• For all families facing decisions regarding schooling this fall, that they might seek wisdom, prudence, and patience from the Lord;
• For all students, that they might grow in wisdom, age and grace in the coming academic year; 
• For all individuals and families, that they might deepen their roots in the grace, peace, and love of Jesus Christ during this time of uncertainty;  
• For healing for those struggling with COVID-19, and for strength and safety for all medical personnel; 
• For the staff and ministry of Trinity House Cafe, and all Heaven in Your Home Workshop participants;
• For unity and healing in our nation, and for wisdom for all public officials;
• For all parents, that they may be refreshed and renewed on a daily basis by the Lord in prayer, as they seek to lead their families through the uncertainties of this time.   

In Christ,
Soren & Ever Johnson
Founders & Directors
Trinity House CommunityMaking Home a Little Taste of Heaven