What You're Here For: A Davan Video

And for those of you who are really here about Davan, here's a little love for you, too.  There was a fundraiser at Do Jump today.  Doreen Dodgen-Magee, who is the mother of one of the sweetest Zig Zags and a nation-wide lecturer, has been doing a series of speeches as fundraisers.  Today, she spoke about using technology, particularly screen time, in moderation.

First, she invited the Zig Zags to show a little about what can be done by teens who aren't constantly plugged in.  They provided a little ambiance as people were settling in, then a few of them did pieces in progress.  Here's some of the ambiance, followed by a piece in progress that Davan is participating in.

While I didn't learn anything particularly new at the lecture, it did get us to talking about the habits we have.  I've written before about our screen time getting a bit out of control.  And, I did mean screen time in general, not just TV/movies/videos.  I have a couple of things that have been bothering me and that I think we're going to try to change, as others in the family agree about them being issues.

One is that we often eat in front of the screen these days.  We're going to go back to the table, where we've always had dinner in the past, but have gotten into the habit of easy entertainment instead as of late.

Another issue for me is how much time I can spend doing a lot of nothing online.  I don't begrudge the time I spend writing blogs, creating videos (not that I do this part on-line) or responding to friends via email.  However, I can get caught up in surfing - seeing what blogs the authors of my favorite blogs follow, watching You Tube videos, following this or that link.  I've decided not to do more than a half an hour above and beyond my core computer activities.

My third issue is really an Anthony issue.  He can spend a whole lot of time searching for that perfect deal on bike parts/clothes/accessories.  He decided this is a time sink for him on his own (whew) and is going to set some limits himself.

We're also discussing limiting video watching beyond just not during dinner, but we haven't come up with anything solid regarding that yet.  We do only watch about 1.5 hours a day on average, so it's not super excessive, but it can still add up and what else could we be doing with that time?  Or, as it's something we do together and discuss, is it fine that we're doing it?  These are things for us to figure out.