Youth Screen Addiction! Did Covid-19 Make Our Kids Addicted to Screens? Is this a Problem that Parents, Educators, and Kids Should be Concerned About?

The Best Paragraph I've Read: The day after New Year’s, John Reichert of Boulder, Colo., had a heated argument with his 14-year-old son, James. “I’ve failed you as a father,” he told the boy despairingly. During the long months of lockdowns and shuttered schools, Mr. Reichert, like many parents, overlooked the vastly increasing time that his son was spending on video games and social media. Now, James, who used to focus his free time on mountain biking and playing basketball, devotes nearly all of his leisure hours — about 40 a week — to Xbox and his phone. During their argument, he pleaded with his father not to restrict access, calling his phone his “whole life.” “That was the tipping point. His whole life?” said Mr. Reichert, a technical administrator in the local sheriff’s office. “I’m not losing my son to this.” This paragraph comes from the New York Times.  The article is titled: "Children's Screen Time Has Soared in the Pandemic, Alarming Parents and Researchers."  The article is written by Matt Richtel.  You can read the article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/16/health/covid-kids-tech-use.html Zac and Don talk about the rise of screen time that they have seen in their own lives and in their classrooms.  They talk about whether too much screen time is a bad thing.   Zac and Don also reference the following article and books: The Guardian: "Video games have replaced music as the most important aspect of youth culture" https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/11/video-games-music-youth-culture Book: Ready Player One https://www.amazon.com/Ready-Player-One-Ernest-Cline/dp/0307887448/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=ready+player+one&qid=1611706186&sr=8-4 Book: What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. https://www.amazon.com/Video-Games-Learning-Literacy-Second/dp/1403984530/ref=sr_1_1?crid=12WUGT86BXOBC&dchild=1&keywords=what+video+games+have+to+teach+us+about+learning+and+literacy&qid=1611706424&sprefix=what+video+%2Caps%2C183&sr=8-1