Screen Tme

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As I’ve been on my children’s case about limiting their screen time, Apple has added a new feature with the latest iOS update.  It is appropriately called, “Screen Time!”  With this feature, users may view the amount of time they have spent using their phone on any given day and it also reports an average for the week.  While, I’ve known of this feature, I haven’t actually used it, until now. So, it’s Thursday, January 17 as I am writing this blog post and I see that I have used my phone for 3 hours and 5 minutes.  Surely, I haven’t used my phone that long!  Then I viewed the details. I’ve spent 36 minutes texting, 29 minutes on Facebook, 25 minutes in Google Maps (GPS), 16 minutes in Safari, and 14 minutes on YouTube, etc.  I felt a little better, because I thought it was only looking at how much time I had spent on social media, but it’s not, it even tells how much time I spent looking at my Screen Time. 

Everywhere we go, today, we see people looking at their phone.  There are few sacred spaces into which phones are not allowed. Even in classrooms, children and young adults have their phones. We have to wonder if this is healthy. According to NPR News, The American Academy of Pediatrics, in 2016 lifted is No Screens Under Two rule, stating “For babies younger than 18 months, AAP still says no screens at all are the best idea — with one notable exception: live video chat.”  For children ages 18 to 24 months, studies “have actually shown poorer language skills correlated with earlier solo viewing of "educational" videos.”  They recommend that parents view the educational videos and programs with their children to help them understand what they are viewing. For children ages 2 to 5 years old, the AAP recommends no more than an hour a day of screen time.  

We have studies that cite screen time as having a negative impact on language development, in young children, but we don’t know the effects on older children or adults.  Marshall McLuhan, Director of the Institute of Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto said, “we become what we behold...we shape our tools and afterwards our tools shape us”  This quote really makes me think about the unknown effects of the devices we behold for multiple hours each day. 1 Corinthians 10:31 advises, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”  Are we using our phones in ways that will glorify God the Father? Are we teaching our children to do the same?   Before posting, we should ask ourselves:

• Does this post matter?  
• Will this post be useful to others?
• Will this post promote the kingdom of God?
• Is this a faithful and truthful representation of the body of Christ?

If our posts don’t meet this criteria, then they are likely doing harm to the kingdom of God by promoting idolatry or pride.  We must be mindful of our social media audience, always seeking to point them to God the Father. To protect our own faith and to continue to grow, we must be cautious of the “friends” we have online and the videos we choose to watch.  Another thing to consider: Does the amount of time we spend on our phone on social media match the amount of time we spend in our Bible studying the Word of God each day? 

(Did I mention that you can set screen time limits?  Yep, you can set your phone to lock you out of certain applications once your preset time limit has been reached each day.  You’re welcome! :-) 


~Matthew 6:22-23 ESV
The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

~Proverbs 29:20 NIV
Do you see someone who speaks in haste?  There is more hope for a fool than for them.

~Proverbs 10:19 NLT
Too much talk leads to sin. Be sensible and keep your mouth shut.



Amen!
Thank you for reading! 
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Kim