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Last night, I had a vision:
Chip, Media Jean and Johnny giving up their screens, not just for two weeks but three. All I had to do was nudge our Yosemite trip back a few days to dovetail with National Screen-Free Week. That’s when Alice has the kids and their families sign a Screen-Free pledge. That first screen-free week will become detox for the following two weeks in Yosemite! To back me up, I asked Alice to help with some research. Using screens to build an argument against screens may seem hypocritical. But I’m not arguing for zero screen usage. I’m arguing that there’s a screen epidemic in America that's turning into an AI disease, and we must do something about it. According to the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood:
And that's not counting the recent studies showing that AI usage is physically deteriorating cognitive areas en the brain, or that those creating the tech won't let their own kids use it. Imagine what would happen if you gave 1 hour a day to screens and spent the other 4-5 hours creating or learning or training or exploring. If you love music, 4-5 hours of daily practice can take you to the concert halls. If you love writing, 4-5 hours a day will not only refine your craft but finish that languishing novel. Have more than one passion? Use those 4-5 hours to develop them all! Sink into your talents! Soak up your bliss! Invest in yourself and your future! Be a creator, not just a consumer! I’m getting ahead of myself, as usual. The point for now is to give Chip, Media Jean and Johnny an opportunity to experience life screen-free for three full weeks. And since two of those weeks will unfold in Yosemite, I’m hoping for a life-changing experience. Comments 
Media Jean: Three weeks screen-free?! 
Chip: I've never gone that long without screens.
Media Jean: Who in their right mind has?! The last time Miss Stillwater made us participate in Screen-Free Week, I went bonkers!
Chip: Ha ha! I remember! You dressed up like Little House on the Prairie and refused to use any technology.
Media Jean: Yeah, but Miss Stillwater called my bluff. She made Screen-Free Week into Little House on the Prairie Week.
Chip: That was a long week. My dad made me wash clothes by hand.
Media Jean: My parents wouldn't let me use the vacuum cleaner. I had to sweep the rug! You ever try to sweep a rug?!
Chip: Still, those stats are pretty amazing. And since my dad found them in a magazine at the doctor's office, those stats are a few years old. I'm sure it's way more now.
Media Jean: But they don't represent us! We don't spend hundreds of hours a month watching TV and streaming movies! Why should we be punished for someone else's viewing habits?!
Chip: We probably spend almost that much time online and on our phones.
Media Jean: That's different! That's interactive!
Chip: Well, that's sort of true.
Media Jean: We're Googling and social networking and creating, not just watching!
Chip: Last night, my dad told me about FOMO.
Media Jean: FOMO? That sounds R-rated.
Chip: FOMO stands for Fear Of Missing Out. It's a new anxiety disorder that's sweeping the world. People are so afraid they'll miss something on their social networks that they check their phones over 100 times a day. Some even sleep with their phones on the pillow so when they wake up in the middle of the night they can check for messages.
Media Jean: Ha ha! A cell phone instead of a teddy bear!
Chip: You have to admit, my dad makes a pretty good argument about spending more time doing what you love.
Media Jean: I suppose. Instead of 5 hours a day online, I could spend an hour drawing. I love art.
Chip: I could spend an hour a day writing stories. I used to make up stories all the time.
Media Jean: I loved those stories. You should write more.
Chip: What about your origami? Remember when you wanted to be an origami master?
Media Jean: I was getting pretty good too.
Chip: I could spend an hour a day on languages. I love computer languages, but I always wanted to learn more people languages, especially Japanese.
Media Jean: This is starting to sound fun! Let's take a pledge. For one year, I'll spend an hour a day drawing and an hour a day on origami. You'll spend an hour a day writing and an hour a day learning Japanese.
Chip: Counting weekends?
Media Jean: Let's not get carried away.
Chip: So just weekdays. That's about 260 days a year. 260 hours works out to over thirty 8-hour work days a year.
Media Jean: Wow! That's like a month full time on art and origami.
Chip: When you crunch the numbers, it's kind of amazing.
Media Jean: So it's a pledge?
Chip: It's a pledge!
Media Jean: On our honor?
Chip: On our honor!
Media Jean: One other thing: we tell no one — especially your dad or Miss Stillwater. Agreed?
Chip: Agreed!
Media Jean: The last thing we need is a smug adult smiling at us all year. 
Comic strip from the series "Screen-Free Week!
(Kid, Inc. Volume 1: Look Out, Tomorrow, Here We Come!) Have a thought for Bob? Write to us at [email protected]
Chip asked if he could bring Media Jean and Johnny on our Yosemite trip. After a selfish moment that any dad will understand, I happily agreed.
The next day I found the three kids reading aloud from my dog-eared copy of The Wild Muir: Twenty-Two of John Muir’s Greatest Adventures by Lee Stetson. I sometimes feel so superfluous as a dad in the digital age. When Chip wants to learn how to do something, his mentor is YouTube. When he wants answers, his go-to guy is Google. When he has something to say, he sends a text. When he wants to talk, he chats. He shares his day on Instagram and forgets to update his own dad. Now Chip and his friends are reading about John Muir. They’re asking to experience Yosemite in person rather than read about it on Wikipedia. Maybe I’m having a positive impact on them after all. I can’t wait. On the first day, we’ll drive through Montana and drop into Idaho. We’ll spend the night, get up early to ride the historic Thunder Mountain train, and spend a couple of hours at Craters of the Moon National Park. Then we’ll push on through to California (with a rest stop in Reno), take Highway 120 into Yosemite Valley, and arrive in time to watch the day’s last golden light lift off of Half Dome. We’ll set up at Housekeeping Camp, make dinner over my trusty Coleman stove, roll out four sleeping bags on two bunk beds, and fall asleep to the melody of quiet campfire conversations in the big hush of the valley. Then we’ll wake with the sun and set out to explore heaven on earth. No computers. No laptops. No tablets. No wi-fi. I’ll carry a cell phone for emergencies, but that’s it. Ten days of face-to-face life and no Facebook. Ten days of birds singing and no tweeting. Ten days of direct experience without a YouTuber to tell you how to feel about it. I’m doing something important for these kids. Maybe I’m not so superfluous after all. Comments 
Media Jean: Whoa whoa whoa. We can’t bring our laptops, tablets, and phones? 
Chip: I thought you knew that. 
Johnny: How am I supposed to keep up with the financial world?
Chip: You’re not. That’s the whole point. To get away.
Johnny: Are you crazy?! I can’t “get away” from my stocks! I have to stay on top of that stuff!
Chip: I think my dad would say this trip is about taking stock of your soul.
Media Jean: How am I supposed to experience Yosemite without my photo app and my journal app. I even downloaded a bunch of Yosemite apps!
Chip: My dad has a camera, and he picked up a notebook for each of us.
Media Jean: But what if I want to learn more about Half Dome or Yosemite Falls or a raven or something? How can I Google anything?
Chip: I tried that argument on my dad. He wants us to experience Half Dome and the Falls and the wildlife. To feel our response to it. To think and wonder about it. He calls it your inner Google.
Johnny: You and your dad’s inner stuff! Inner North Star! Inner Google! I’m a businessman! I live in the outer world!
Chip: Every year my dad and I see more and more people with GameBoys and smartphones. They walk through Yosemite Valley looking down instead of looking up. Do we want to be like that?
Johnny: Well, when you put it that way.
Media Jean: John Muir would be ashamed of us.
Chip: No, he wouldn’t. He’d just encourage us to be bold. Here, I’ll send you the quotes I copied from dad’s book.
Media Jean: Got it. Wow, these are amazing.
Chip: Here’s one of my favorites. “Keep close to Nature’s heart ... and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”
Media Jean: Johnny’s spirit can definitely use a bath.
Johnny: Very funny. This quote sounds like he’s talking to me personally. “I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news.” Ouch.
Chip: “Most people are on the world, not in it.”
Media Jean: “The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
Johnny: “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”
Chip: “Nature is always lovely, invincible, glad, whatever is done and suffered by her creatures. All scars she heals, whether in rocks or water or sky or hearts.”
Media Jean: “In God’s wildness lies the hope of the world.”
Johnny: “One touch of nature makes all the world kin.”
Chip: “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”
Media Jean: Wow. I want to feel that.
Johnny: Me too.
Chip: Me, too. So are we with John Muir? He said, “The mountains are calling and I must go.” Do we hear the mountains calling?
Media Jean: Yes!
Chip: Are we going to leave our devices and go?
Johnny: Yes!
Media Jean: The mountains are calling!
Johnny: And we must go!
Chip: That’s the spirit! 
Comic strip from the series "Screen-Free Week"
(Kid, Inc. Volume 2: The Batcave of Childhood) Have a thought for Bob? Write to us at [email protected]
Sitting here trying to decide which stories to tell. Stories I haven’t told Chip before. Stories to leave behind when I move on.
Sometimes a little snack helps me get started. But there’s not a bag of chips to be found. No tater tots or pizzas in the freezer. No tubes of Pillsbury biscuits, no tubs of butter, no shrink-wrapped cold cuts, and no mayo in the trusty fridge. The pantry is usually dependable. There’s always something forgotten in the back, behind the cans of pinto beans and creamed corn. But not today. No crinkly bag of Newman’s O’s. No long matinee boxes of Red Vines. Where’s my backup stash of Ginger Ale? Where are my Slim Jims and vacuum-sealed pouches of jerky? Top shelf, right side. My stack of Jell-O boxes are gone. Not one box of my beloved cook-and-stir chocolate pudding! Even the cookie jar is empty. When I ask Chip and Media Jean where all the snacks have gone, Chip shrugs and says, “That stuff isn’t good for you anyway.” Media Jean gives me one of her all-knowing looks and adds, “You’re entering the Drop Dead Zone, Mr. MacMurray.” “Drop Dead Zone?” “She means risk factors,” Chip smiles. He always tries to soften Media Jean’s straight talk. Before I could ask another question, they flew out the door. Something’s going on, and as usual, I don’t know what it is. Comments
Media Jean: He’s going to figure out that we threw out all his unhealthy food.
Chip: Then he’ll just go to the store and buy more artery-clogging food.
Media Jean: Maybe we need to take a stand.
Chip: Uh oh. When you say “take a stand” we usually get in trouble.
Media Jean: This time will be different.
Chip: That’s what you say every time.
Media Jean: And I’m right. Every time is different.
Chip: That’s true. We get into a different kind of trouble every time.
Media Jean: Ha ha! I’ll give you that one. But not this time. I think we should just tell your dad the truth. Hit him with statistics on heart disease, POW! Prostate cancer, BAM! Osteo-what-cha-ma-call-it, SLAM!
Chip: Osteoporosis.
Media Jean: Right! This is serious, Chip! It really is life and death. So let’s step right up and say, “We love you, and we want you to live a long, long time. So shape up!”
Chip: But what if he wants to compromise?
Media Jean: I’m not much of a compromiser. I say we declare a health war.
Chip: Ha ha! A health war?!
Media Jean: He brings a bag of Doritos in the house, we take it out. He sneaks in a box of Twinkies, we sneak it out.
Chip: He could hide food where we’ll never find it.
Media Jean: Not if we install hidden Nanny-cams with night vision to catch those midnight munchies.
Chip: I see only one flaw with this plan.
Media Jean: Impossible! It’s foolproof!
Chip: If there are no snacks in the house, what will we eat?
Media Jean: Uh oh. I hadn’t thought of that.
Chip: Tomorrow is our Ray Harryhausen Film Festival. We’ll have to eat carrots and celery during Clash of the Titans.
Media Jean: We can have the Harryhausen Film Fest at my house.
Chip: I don’t know. If we start this war, I bet my dad calls your dad.
Media Jean: Yikes, I hadn’t thought of that!
Chip: Your mom is always trying to get you to eat healthier.
Media Jean: A Parent Team-Up! That’s the Dr. Doom and Magneto of Childhood!
Johnny: You can have the Harryhausen Film Festival at my house.
Media Jean: The lurker surfaces like The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.
Johnny: I wasn’t lurking! I just logged on to see what you idiots were talking about. And why wasn’t I invited to this Harryhausen thing?
Media Jean: Do you know who Ray Harryhausen was?
Johnny: No.
Media Jean: That’s why.
Chip: My dad will call your dad, too, Johnny.
Johnny: So? You think your dad can out-negotiate my dad? Give me a break!
Media Jean: Really? What about Screen-Free Week? Remember how Chip’s dad talked your dad into banning all screens in your house? No TVs. No tablets. No phones. You cried.
Johnny: I didn’t cry! That was stress. But you have a point. Chip’s dad might be an economic failure, but when it comes to the moral high ground, he’s tough to beat.
Media Jean: By the time he’s through, you’ll be eating rice cakes!
Johnny: All right, you made your point!
Media Jean: Your dad will start investing in broccoli stock!
Johnny: I said all right!
Chip: We have to call off the war.
Media Jean: I think you’re right.
Chip: If we tell our parents the “right” thing to do, but then don’t do it ourselves, aren’t we doing what we always criticize them for doing?
Media Jean: Hmm, a “we have become the enemy” kind of thing.
Chip: Right. Either we all do the right thing, or we live and let live.
Media Jean: Rats. OK, call off the health war. We’ll have to find another way to get your dad healthy.
Johnny: So... does that mean the Harryhausen Film Festival is still on?
Media Jean: Just kidding! Yeah, the festival is still on. Your house, tomorrow after school.
Johnny: One of these days I’m going to buy this company and fire you.
Media Jean: Yeah, yeah. Just don’t forget the snacks, Mr. Surround Sound. 
Comic strip from the series "Johnny Green's Avatar"
(Kid, Inc. Volume 2: The Batcave of Childhood) Have a thought for Bob? Write to us at [email protected]
I’m a blogger.
Me, of all people. I don’t use computers. I don’t trust technology. Bob don’t surf. But he blogs. This might be a good time to repeat my new mantra: What do I know...? What do I know...? What do I know...? I should have expected this. Knowing my son, it’s surprising I didn’t end up online sooner. Alice is going to laugh her head off when she reads this. Bob’s Blog. Good grief. Comments
Chip: I hope it wasn't a mistake putting Dad's journal online. He seems more overwhelmed than ever.
Media Jean: It's OK, Chip. Your dad loves you. Sure, he's a Luddite, but he'd rather blog with you than live on Walden Pond without you. 
Comic strip from the series "Bob's Blog"
(Kid, Inc. Volume 1: Look Out, Tomorrow, Here We Come!) Have a thought for Bob? Write to us at [email protected] |
AuthorHey, I'm Bob, and I hate technology. So why am I blogging? Because I love my son. He upgraded my typewriter to wirelessly post every keystroke online. It makes him happy, so here I am. Archives
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