Republished from July 21, 2021 and originally published on Medium.
This week, in the middle of election debate season, tangible climate crisis, pandemic return to school and continued racial and societal injustices, our family decided to watch Netflix’s, The Social Dilemma. I knew it was tough timing. We’ve recently been engaged with our media — personal, professional and educational — in a way that feels like our all time peak use. But, in different online parent groups I saw the documentary trending and because of my career as an author and speaker on Digital Health and Well-Being for families, I knew we had to make some space for it.
My husband and I, and three of our five screen loving children, ages 12, 14 and 16, settled in after dinner and homework to watch. We took a break about forty five minutes into the documentary to debrief, ask questions, offer pushback and share our feelings. Then, when the film was complete, since we were all a little tense and torn about our love of screens, we agreed to go our separate ways and revisit the conversation another day.
Now, a few days and a few hard discussions…