If you had to give up screens for a whole week, what would you miss the most? For me, it would be my habit of browsing Reddit and Imgur before bed. I’ve been doing it for so long, I don’t even think about whether or not it’s good for me. Thanks to Jean Rogers and the Children’s Screen Time Action Network, I’m starting to ask a lot more of these kinds of questions.

The Children’s Screen Time Action Network is a project of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. CCFC works to create a world where children’s lives are shaped by what’s best for them, not by corporate profits.

Screen Free Week, May 3-9, 2021, is the Action Network’s annual celebration of unplugging, reconnection, and joy. They’re celebrating differently this year because screens have become the only means of connection for so many of us. But maybe that’s all the more reason to focus on this area of our lives?

In our interview, Jean makes sure we understand they’re not suggesting we all become luddites. They’re not trying to unplug us and our kids altogether. The idea is to increase our awareness of screen time so that we can build our discernment muscles and make sure the kids in our lives are building theirs as well.

Meet Jean Rogers

Jean Rogers is the Director of the Children’s Screen Time Action Network, where she leads a coalition of practitioners, educators, advocates, and parents who collaborate on practical methods to reduce children’s time on screens and digital devices, mitigate the dangers, and preserve childhood in the digital age. Jean is the host of Action Network Live!, a webcast bringing experts to parents on how screens impact all aspects of child development. She writes a weekly mini-blog and speaks widely to parents, teachers and activists, empowering them to implement simple solutions to a complex 21st century parenting challenge. She earned Masters’ degrees in Education and Parenting Education at Wheelock College, where she took up the mantel of Susan Linn and Diane Levin, trailblazers in media literacy, play-based learning, and avoiding a commercialized childhood. Prior to working at the Action Network, Jean was a freelance marketing writer, illuminating products and services for nonprofit and business clients. She was also a music teacher, director of a large church school, a college writing center consultant. Her greatest role is mother to 5 children.

Websites

• Screen-Free Week
• Children’s Screentime Action Network
• Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood
• Center for Humane Technology

Take Action

• Send your own letter to Mark Zuckerberg about Instagram for Kids
• Get the Coded Bias Activist Toolkit

Books & Other Resources

• Kids Under Fire by Jean Rogers
• Reset Your Child’s Brain: A Four-Week Plan to End Meltdowns, Raise Grades, and Boost Social Skills by Reversing the Effects of Electronic Screen-Time by Victoria L. Dunckley
• Listen to Action Network Live’s Past Recordings
• Listen to the PlayGrounding episode, “Is a Lack of Free Play Endangering Our Democracy?”