Defeating Distraction

Here are some tips to develop a healthier relationship with technology:

Escaping the Comparison Trap

This tip sheet will give you some tips for building a healthier relationship with social media so you can avoid the comparison trap and feel better about yourself online.

Understand How the 'Comparison Trap' Works

Here are a few things about social media that make us more likely to compare ourselves to others:

I’m overwhelmed online. Now what?

I probably could, and maybe should, write about all of the social media changes we are seeing. The troubling updates to Meta’s content moderation policies and the removal of their fact-checking program, the complicated TikTok ban in the US, all of it.

Texting, and communication, has changed

There is one place getting more attention lately for increasing the quality of conversations: in-person.

Digital Media Experiences are Shaped by the Tools We Use: The Disconnection Challenge

In this lesson, students consider the role of technology and media in their lives and then spend a week either tracking or limiting their media use. They then share their experiences and discuss how the ways that digital media tools are made may cause us to use them differently (or simply more often). Finally, students draw on those insights to create a mindful media use plan. In an optional extension activity, they interview other students for a video exploring their experiences and reflections over the course of the project.

Summertime and the screens are easy

I am lucky enough to work from home and have a flexible work schedule, so my kids have always been stay-at-home kids in the summer. They have some daily chores and other special work to do over the summer, but in general they have a lot of free time on their hands.

Post-quarantine rules reset

There are still a lot of unknowns about COVID-19, but for now at least, our province has started to open up a bit. Parks and beaches are open, most stores and malls are opening, and we’re even able to get haircuts again.

The Trickle: What to do when your teen is constantly checking their phone

Our older teens, aged 17 and 15, have smartphones. They aren’t big users of social media, but they do get messages from friends fairly often on Instagram, Hangouts and Discord.

Bonding over video games

We’ve been using video games to bond with our kids for a while now. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right?

Getting your News from Social Media

An interesting thing happened the other day. My husband was talking about some recent political events in the United States, and my kids and I didn’t know what he was talking about.