Tag: smartphone addiction
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Instagram Teen Accounts: Wolves Targeting the Young Sheep
Meta, parent company of Instagram & Facebook, announced their new “Teen Accounts” today. The propaganda on that page is written to comfort parents by assuring us that they’ve heard the criticisms of Jonathan Haidt and the U.S. Surgeon General, they read the bad press, and they’re taking steps to avoid breaking the mental health of…
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Does Social Media Help or Hinder Discipleship? Responding to the Brady Shearer Critique
This past week, the rock-star digital media strategist Brady Shearer published a YouTube critique of my interview with Preston Sprinkle. He has 54k Instagram followers, 97k TikTok followers, and 134k YouTube subscribers. He’s super-smart and well-spoken. I’m grateful for a dialog with someone so accomplished. This is an in-depth and important conversation, so it’s long.…
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Screen-Free Family Dinners: A Matter of Life and Death?
I’m far from a perfect parent. I have many regrets — things I wish I could do over. But here’s one thing I’m proud of: we made screen-free family dinners a priority. Besides praying together (nearly) every night, I believe this is one of the main reasons I still have a great relationship with my…
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How Social Media and Screens Have Hijacked Our Hearts and Minds: The Preston Sprinkle Interview
If you haven’t listened to the Theology in the Raw podcast with Preston Sprinkle, you’re missing some of the most thoughtful and engaging conversations. Preston’s motto is “love widely, and think deeply.” He’s a Bible scholar par excellence, but his obvious love of people with diverse belief systems makes him unusually engaging and winsome. I’ve…
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Healthy Screen Use with Nathan Sutherland of GospelTech.net
Nathan Sutherland and I had a great conversation on his GospelTech podcast. Nathan and his wife Anna are doing a really important work: helping families navigate our screen-saturated world with a focus on the Gospel of Christ. We offer hope for parents who are willing to be more intentional with their families than today’s most…
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If the App is Free, Are We the Product, Sold Like a Human Slave?
Last fall, in the five minutes a week I spend on Facebook, I shared a provocative idea. It raised a question, a push-back, even a disagreement. Take a look: I’m grateful for Greg’s push-back, as it inspired this (long delayed) post. I don’t debate on social media, but I welcome debate in blog comments. As…
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A Great Interview with ScreenStrong Podcast
I recently had the honor of appearing on the ScreenStrong Families Podcast. I think the 25-minute interview with Marketing Director Mandee Hamann is one of the most helpful I’ve done. If you need encouragement to become more intentional with screens — yours or your family’s — I think you’ll appreciate this episode. If so, please…
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We’re Confused About Social Media
The confusion about social media is a misunderstanding about what it is, and what it’s for. Most people think it’s a tool for connecting with family and friends. For sharing pictures with grandparents. For announcing important things. For convenient conversation. But social media is actually none of those things. Social media is an advertising platform…
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Grateful for Book Awards!
My book, [Un]Intentional: How Screens Secretly Shape Your Desires, and How You can Break Free, has received some nice recent recognition. First, it won a Silver medal in the 2020 Illumination Book Awards for the Self-Help/Recovery category. These national awards “are designed to honor and bring increased recognition to the year’s best new titles written…
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Doctor Reveals The Real Reason Kids Are Addicted To Screens
Dr. Richard Freed reveals the reasons so many kids want to be using screens all the time. It’s time for parents to know what’s going on so we can wisely guide our kids through our screen-saturated world.