Tuesday night, June 26th, saw the screening of SCREENAGERS: Growing Up in The Digital Age Batemans Bay Soldiers Club hosted by the Batemans Bay Community of Schools.
Aware of the impact of the digital age on students the combined schools united to seek permission to screen the internationally recognised film produced by physician and filmmaker Delaney Ruston who saw that with her own kids and learned that the average kid spends 6.5 hours a day looking at screens. As a parent he wondered about the impact of all this time and about the friction occurring in homes and schools around negotiating screen time - friction she knew all too well. If you missed out on the screening you will find more information below:
SCREENAGERS: Growing Up in The Digital Age has been screened more than 6,000 times to two million people in more than 50 countries around the world.. With multiple screenings happening daily in communities across the globe, SCREENAGERS is the first feature documentary to explore the impact of screen technology on kids and offer parents and families proven solutions that work. What started out as a personal story for one has grown into a national movement, helping millions of teens and their families navigate growing up in a world with instant access to screens.
Physician and filmmaker, Delaney Ruston decided to make SCREENAGERS when she found herself constantly struggling with her two kids about screen time. Ruston felt guilty and confused, not sure what limits were best, especially around mobile phones, social media, gaming, and how to monitor online homework. Hearing repeatedly how other parents were equally overwhelmed, she realized this is one of the biggest, unexplored parenting issues of our time.
As a director, Ruston turned the camera on her own family and others—revealing stories of messy struggles over social media, video games, academics and internet addiction. We meet Hannah, a 14-year old victim of social media bullying who struggled trying to hide her social media use from her mom. And Andrew, whose love of video games turned into an addiction taking him from earning straight A’s to flunking out of college.
Interwoven into these stories, are cutting edge science and insights from thought leaders Peggy Orenstein, Sherry Turkle, Simon Sinek, as well as leading brain scientists who present evidence on the real changes in the brain when kids are on screens. SCREENAGERS goes far beyond exposing the risks of screen time, it reveals multiple approaches on how parents and educators can work with kids to help them achieve a healthy amount of screen time.
SCREENAGERS is blazing a new model of distribution. The adopted community viewing model brings parents and educators together to start a conversation about how screen time impacts their lives and what they can do about it. As part of the community viewing model, parents, educatorsare encouraged to have their own screenings `
Above: Dr. Delaney Ruston: "Screenagers: Growing Up In The Digital Age" | Talks at Google
Parents are encouraged to bring their kids to the movie.
Movie Themes
Use of screens in school
Boys and video games
Girls and social media
Risk of addiction
Stats
Kids spend on average 6.5 hours a day on screens and that doesn’t include classroom or homework screen time.
Boys spend on average the equivalent of 1.5 days on video games every week
Some recent studies show us that screen time increases dopamine production and causes behavior that mimics addiction.
