How The Best Parents Handle Big Tech

Many parents I talk to feel guilty about restricting screens "too much."

If you feel the same way, let me tell you:

You're doing the right thing.

It's not because some parents are careless about tech that you should too. It's not because your kid's friends have 3 smartphones, 17 tablets, and an account for every social media with no restrictions whatsoever that you should indulge in this nonsense too.

Steve Jobs, the very creator of the iPhone and iPad, didn't allow his kids to use one. As geeky as he was, his house was "tech-free."

Why Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Both Severely Limited Their Kids' Tech Use

Now, times have changed since Steve Jobs passed away in 2011:

Tech is often essential in the personal and professional worlds. It would be a disservice to deprive a kid of developing tech skills.

But it would also be a disservice to let them sink in too much in the digital world:

Studies show premature thinning of the frontal cortex, mental health issues, and severe attention disorders among kids spending hours a day on screens and/or on social media.

Among others, Michel Desmurget, a neuroscientist, sounds the alarm:

"Never such an experiment in decerebration has been carried out on such a large scale."

The truth is, we're only at the beginning of the digital era. As with every other beginning, we make mistakes. And it takes time for the world to wake up, realize it, and act.

So, meanwhile, what can you do to protect your family?

First step would be to chat with your kids about the impact of screen abuse.

Second would be to help them limit their screen time.

But If you've tried to limit screen time with parental controls (or Apple Screen Time), you may have noticed that your kids bypassed the restrictions pretty easily.

The truth is, most of those apps are a joke.

That's why 6 kids out of 10 bypass their parental controls.

That pisses me off. So I've compiled in a brochure the very, very few parental controls that kids can't bypass.

You can learn more about this brochure here.

Thanks for being a tech-responsible parent,