• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Dion Almaer

Software, Development, Products

  • @dalmaer
  • LinkedIn
  • Medium
  • RSS
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Short Story

Nudging out screen time

November 4, 2017 Leave a Comment

I found myself on a long plane trip from Europe (the Firebase Dev Summit in Amsterdam, which was so much fun…. getting to hear from developers creating) and in the frozen-in-time-haze found myself looking at the old tale of a Rabbi helping a family in a small house, find contentment.

Living in the Bay Area, having a small area to live in definitely resonates. However, I then found myself rewriting the story, inverting the order of “filling up the space” and targeting an area that I struggle so much more with: creating a healthy relationship with devices and technology.

Here is the adaptation, which I believe is just as cheesy as the original 😉


A middle class man lived with his wife and six children in a very small house in Palo Alto. They were always on screens ignoring each other and it was driving the parents crazy.

Finally the man could stand it no more. He talked to his wife and asked her what to do. “Go see the psychologist from Screenagers,” she told him, and after arguing a while, he emailed.

The doctor greeted him and said, “I see something is troubling you. Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

And so the poor man told the shrink how miserable things were at home with him, his wife, and the six children all addicted to their screens. The poor man told her, “We’re either not talking at all, or we yell and fight to get each other off our devices. Life couldn’t be worse.”

The doctor thought very deeply about the poor man’s problem. Then he said, “Do exactly as I tell you and things will get better. Do you promise?”

“I promise,” the poor man said.

The doctor then asked the poor man a strange question. “Do you have any hobbies?”

“Yes,” he said. “I like sports, and hiking, and making things in the shop.”

“Good,” the doctor said. “When you get home, get the family to go for a walk after dinner each night.”

The man was hoping for advice around device usage, but he promised to listen to the doctor so he went home and after dinner took the family for a walk.

The next week the man met with the doctor. “We are all still arguing about screens“ he cried. “Going for a post-supper walk is nice and all, but it isn’t helping“

The doctor listened and said calmly, “Now go home and signup everyone in the family for a weekly piano lesson, with 30 minutes of practice, daily”

The chap did as the doctor said, but hurried back again the next week. “The piano practice is great, but still…. the screens!!” he moaned. The good doctor said, “Go home and make sure everyone reads for 30 minutes before bedtime.”

So the poor man went home and got his family reading at 8pm. But he ran back again the following week, still crying and wailing. “The reading is great and all, but still, too much screen time is afoot“

The doctor said sweetly, “My friend, you are right. Relax as a family and just play some board games.” And the poor man went quickly home and took out the backgammon.

The next month he came running back to the doctor again. “O Doctor,” he said with a big smile on his face, “we have such a good life now. We are getting exercise, and spending time with each other, and the kids are doing well in school. I hardly mind that we spend some time with technology. Our lives are so full elsewhere, it finally feels appropriate”


Any thoughts on success that you have had managing family balance are appreciated 😉

Primary Sidebar

Twitter

My Tweets

Recent Posts

  • Generative AI: It’s Time to Get Into First Gear
  • Developer Docs + GenAI = ❤️
  • We keep confusing efficacy for effectiveness
  • The holy grail of a Web SDK
  • The rise of the extensible app platforms

Follow

  • LinkedIn
  • Medium
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Tags

3d Touch 2016 Active Recall Adaptive Design Agile Amazon Echo Android Android Development Apple Application Apps Artificial Intelligence Autocorrect blog Bots Brain Calendar Career Advice Cloud Computing Coding Cognitive Bias Commerce Communication Companies Conference Consciousness Cooking Cricket Cross Platform Deadline Delivery Design Desktop Developer Advocacy Developer Experience Developer Platform Developer Productivity Developer Relations Developers Developer Tools Development Distributed Teams Documentation DX Ecosystem Education Energy Engineering Engineering Mangement Entrepreneurship Exercise Family Fitness Founders Future GenAI Gender Equality Google Google Developer Google IO Habits Health HR JavaScript Jobs Jquery Kids Stories Kotlin Language Leadership Learning Lottery Machine Learning Management Messaging Metrics Micro Learning Microservices Microsoft Mobile Mobile App Development Mobile Apps Mobile Web Moving On NPM Open Source Organization Organization Design Pair Programming Paren Parenting Path Performance Platform Platform Thinking Politics Product Design Product Development Productivity Product Management Product Metrics Programming Progress Progressive Enhancement Progressive Web App Project Management Psychology Push Notifications pwa QA Rails React Reactive Remix Remote Working Resilience Ruby on Rails Screentime Self Improvement Service Worker Sharing Economy Shipping Shopify Short Story Silicon Valley Slack Software Software Development Spaced Repetition Speaking Startup Steve Jobs Study Teaching Team Building Tech Tech Ecosystems Technical Writing Technology Tools Transportation TV Series Twitter Typescript Uber UI Unknown User Experience User Testing UX vitals Voice Walmart Web Web Components Web Development Web Extensions Web Frameworks Web Performance Web Platform WWDC Yarn

Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Archives

  • January 2023
  • September 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • November 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • October 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • January 2019
  • October 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • May 2018
  • February 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012

Search

Subscribe

RSS feed RSS - Posts

The right thing to do, is the right thing to do.

The right thing to do, is the right thing to do.

Dion Almaer

Copyright © 2023 · Log in

 

Loading Comments...