I don't need to know about Mario Puzo and other lessons from Screen-Free Week

This is Mario Puzo.  He wrote The Godfather when he was 45 years old.  
The author of this blog is currently 45 years old.  
She has not written a bestselling novel, nor does she have one in the works.

From May 5-11 of this year, I participated in Screen-Free Week.  This event used to be called TV-Turnoff Week.  While teaching fifth grade - over fourteen years ago - I taught a media literacy unit to my class, and we participated in TV-Turnoff week together.  We did it in a low-pressure way to help raise awareness of television viewing habits.  The event was renamed to reflect the variety of screens that have come into our lives since it began in 1994.  For my family, screen time means many things.  We watch movies or television shows, almost all on DVD or through Netflix or another streaming service.  The kids also use the television to play video games on the Xbox or the Wii.  Besides the television set, there's the desktop computer, the iPad and individual family members' iPhones or iPods. And screens are everywhere now - not just at home, but also in schools, at stores and museums and doctor's offices.

I try to be aware of my own screen use.  What message am I sending if I tell my child that he spends too much time on a screen, but at the same time I'm frequently checking e-mail, the weather app or Facebook?  And, yes, I've had my kids call me out on that a few times.  I'm glad they did.  Rather than get defensive, I try to acknowledge and discuss it.  I could be defensive and say that I had to check e-mail updates about soccer practice or a meeting or some other commitment.  But if I'm honest, I admit that it's just as likely I was checking with no real reason at all.  I let screens distract me too.  This year, I have been working on limiting my screen time, mainly on the computer and iPhone or iPad, since I don't watch much television anyway.  That was my motivation for participating in Screen-Free Week.

The official pledge for Screen Free Week states, "I pledge to watch no TV or DVDs, play no video or mobile games, and only use the computer if it's required for work."  Although I don't work outside the home at this time, my work as a parent to three children would require me to occasionally use my computer or phone to check e-mail.  Communication from my older son's school and from all the children's activities is done via e-mail.  But I did make my own personal pledge to limit e-mail use to two or three times a day, which still seems like a lot.  Giving up television and Facebook for a week was not difficult for me, but giving up general Internet use and limiting e-mail was harder.

I really noticed my tendency to want to "look things up" right away.  I'd read something in the newspaper or in a book, or I'd think about an idea for an event or project, and then I'd want to go online immediately and research it.  This is the convenience and (sometimes) benefit of modern technology, but also the disadvantage of it.  We have the world at our fingertips, even when we don't need it.  During Screen-Free Week, my daughter had a birthday party.  I was baking cupcakes and needed to make a substitution in the recipe.  The information was not available in any of the cookbooks I own.  In that case, I considered my use of the computer to be work-related (to my role as a mom) and quickly googled the substitution to see if it would work.  It took only a couple of minutes.  How would I have handled that without a screen?  When it comes to cooking questions, the answer is usually:  call my mom.  I suppose I could have gone to the library and looked at cooking manuals there.  It seemed like a stretch to go to that extent.  Looking up the recipe substitution online seemed legitimate to me.  

There were many times during that week, however, when I wanted to look up information for a lot of reasons that were not legit or necessary.  For example, I was reading the book Show Your Work by Austin Kleon.  The author writes that Mario Puzo wrote The Godfather when he was forty-five years old, because he needed to make money.  Well...I'm forty-five years old and I need to make money!  So, naturally, I wanted to google Mario Puzo.  As if reading his life story would be the secret knowledge I needed.  As if his story would be the key to my future.  This sort of faulty thinking is a downside of the researcher in me.  I spend too much time in the information-gathering stage.  I resisted the urge to google Mario Puzo; I'm sure his Wikipedia entry would have popped right up.  Then I thought about how I would research Mario Puzo without using screens.  If I went to the library, screens would still be involved.  Either the librarian or I would have to use the online catalog to search for a book or article that contained information about Puzo.  As an experiment - I thought I might try to get the information at the library, but then I never had time that week.  Screen-Free Week was over, and I forgot about it for a while.  Because - guess what!? - I really didn't need that information for any reason!  It wasn't essential or necessary in any way.  That's not to say that other people's life stories are not inspirational; they certainly can be.  It's just that the whole process demonstrates my compulsion to look things up right away.  The fact that I forgot about it fairly quickly, when faced with a more difficult research method, shows how unnecessary it was.  The ability to easily and unnecessarily research information on the internet via a computer or mobile device is a real temptation to me.  

I can't say that my one week of being screen free totally transformed me in that regard.  However, it has given me more self-awareness.  I've become better at considering if I really need to do a search, and many times I've stopped myself.  And although that week was very busy with family events and kids' activities, it was somehow more peaceful than other weeks.  I am considering taking another week free from screens sometime later this summer.  I highly recommend it!