Family by God&#039;s Design

Screen Time? What’s the Real Problem?

The amount of time our children and teens spend looking at a screen (screen time) has become a growing concern for parents, a complex problem every family must navigate. On the one hand, excessive screen time is associated with a greater sense of unhappiness. The more time spent on screens, the more likely a teen...

Family Shepherds

connection intimacy smartphones technology

September 17, 2022

The Value of a Wandering Mind

People hate to be bored, especially children and teens. Adults, though, hate being bored as well. When boredom hits, people pull out the cell phone to play a game, check the mail, read an article…anything to escape the boredom. But a series of experiments suggest a different course of action may prove just as effective...

Celebration

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January 29, 2022

Take Charge of Your Smartphone Before It Takes Charge of You

Smartphone users between 18- to 24-years-old check their devices 86 times per day and half of our teens say they are addicted to their smart phone. About 45% of 10–12-year-olds in the United States have a smartphone. Prior to the COVID pandemic, 17% of 5- to10-year-olds, 23% of 11- to 13-year-olds, and 32% of 14-...

Family Shepherds

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August 7, 2021

Self-Control, Smartphones, Rewards, & Success

Researchers from Freie Universitat in Berlin Germany published some interesting findings about smartphones, self-control, and rewards. Specifically, their research revealed that participants who “had a greater total amount of screen time (spent more time on their phones and tablets) were more likely to prefer small, immediate rewards to larger, more delayed rewards,” especially when screen...