Screens and Games and Movies, Oh My!

Tell me the truth. How do you handle screens in your home? Do you view them as inherently evil things, or do you see them as potential tools at times? Do you feel conflicted about them?

I do feel somewhat conflicted. My kids watch Carl Azuz as part of their schooling on YouTube. We read lots of physical books. We watch movies and sports on our television. We play on the trampoline and play soccer and go on lots of hikes and walks.

When my daughter was sick recently, I put up a mobile phone video game called Wordscapes (which I play sometimes to ward off brain atrophy🤞🏻) on our TV and we played it together. We are bookish and theological and philosophical and have great discussions about all those things over family dinner at the table, away from screens.

My kids watch Dude Perfect. We play FIFA soccer on a Nintendo Switch and I play Galaga occasionally. All our kids play instruments and most of them write songs and stories and paint and are deeply creative. We sometimes eat cookies from the store! (Gasp.)

I’m sure we don’t do everything right, and I sometimes feel we are out of balance, but I’ve generally seen screens and movies and video games and cookies as good things in good measure, and bad things out of proportion.

So, in this way, it’s like soccer. (We play a lot, but we stopped doing club travel soccer because we had to miss church.) Soccer is a good game, but a crummy religion. That was our choice for this season of life.

Video games can, I believe, make for a fun period of immersion in a story or a puzzle, and shouldn’t be dismissed entirely just because of the advanced nature of the interface (or technology). But, there are dangers there. Just as there are dangers in spending all our energy on movies, or art galleries, or literature, or ______.

I wonder how your family navigates these challenges and what resources you suggest to other parents looking to be faithful to God in their callings to curate a home built on the Solid Rock.
Does it include games? Board games? Video Games? Does it include sports? Television?

I do tend to see value in having a general orientation that our home is not a garden of NO with a lone tree of YES. Like God’s rule in the beginning of the Story, we want to have a home that is more a garden of yes with a tree of no. I don’t want us to live in fear, but I do want to be sober and faithful and fully yielded to Jesus as our King.

There are a thousand influencers geared up to tell you how afraid you need to be of everything you eat, wear, watch, breathe, play, clean with, enjoy, and it goes on and on. I know that living with an endless fear of “all the things” and a ceaseless comparison game where envy is a daily diet is not the way of life.

I love Andy Crouch on this. The Tech-wise Family  is very good, as is Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism. At the end of my little survey, there’s a blank place for you to give me your best resources. I welcome them!

So, I want to know. What choices, in your family, comport with the way of life? I invite us all to put aside our pet bugaboos and rest in the acceptance we have forever as a child of God in Christ. Breathe in the imperfect air and smile at your imperfect family and try to do a little better, day by day.

But please, tell me about your home. I am keen to hear your thoughts!

Thank you for taking the time to answer.

I’m on your side,

Sam