Tag: screen-time

Screen-free

November 8th, 2026

There is a huge banner hanging off the wall of the Tamarack Waldorf School building. It is there to advertise the school to anybody who happens to drive along Brady Street in Milwaukee. The banner boldly proclaims that Tamarack is “screen-free”, which is an interesting selling point for a private school. Most schools proudly tell the world that they have the newest and most advanced technology. Why would Tamarack, the school that Asher attends, want to say that it rejects video screens and maybe by extension cyberspace overall?

The fact is that excessive screen time in small children does a lot of damage. There can be cognitive and language delays. Screen time can create sleep disruptions, negatively impact social skill development, cause problems with concentration and attention span, and mess with brain development and overall physical health in young kids. A school that eschews screens for children can attract concerned parents. It makes sense for Tamarack to broadcast this.

Is the school totally screen-free? I checked on that. The banner should probably say, “screen-free to the greatest extent possible”, but that would be really hard to fit on a banner. The school is mostly screen-free, and completely so until students reach the middle school grades. Asher is in kindergarten now. It is unlikely that he will use any device with a screen at the school for the next six years. Yes, screens exist at Tamarack, but their use is kept to an absolute minimum.

When my wife and I went to the parents’/caregivers’ orientation for the students, the two kindergarten teachers made it abundantly clear that they did not want the children to watch any videos before coming to school. They described the detrimental effect that screen time has on young children. Asher’s teacher told everyone, “If they have been watching, we will know it!”

Screens are ubiquitous in our country. It takes a real effort not to use them. It is ironic that I have to stare at a screen to write an essay about how screen time can negatively affect children (and probably adults too).

A person might ask if children wouldn’t learn a great deal if screens were more available. Maybe, maybe not. The school puts great emphasis on being part of the natural world. Most of what can be learned is “out there”, not inside a computer or on the Internet. I don’t remember much from my early childhood, but I have a distinct recollection of watching a beetle move slowly through the grass in our backyard. I was fascinated by that insect. I can also recall staring at the churning black clouds as a thunderstorm rolled into the area. That too made me gaze in wonder. I have never gazed in wonder at anything on a glowing screen.

Now, at the age of sixty-eight, I am still sometimes awestruck by the world outside. I got up this morning before dawn, and I saw the planet Venus blazing like a white diamond in the eastern sky, peaking through the leafless boughs of the trees in our yard. I had to stop and look at it. The morning star was glorious, and it filled me with joy to see it.

There is nothing on any screen that could match that.

Involuntarily Offline

November 9th, 2025

Ten days ago, my laptop took a shit. I was kind of expecting this to happen at some point. The laptop was already six years old, which meant that it was well into obsolescence. In addition to that, I had dropped it a couple years ago creating an ugly crack at the corner near the on/off button. The crack had increased in size over time. Finally, the computer refused to allow me to type on the keyboard. I was required to do something if I wanted to go online.

I took the ancient laptop to Best Buy. I have total coverage with Geek Squad, and I planned on using it. It should be noted that it is nearly impossible to go into a Best Buy and physically talk to a Geek Squad agent without an appointment. Just getting an appointment is no easy task either. A person either has to do it online (which is not possible if the device, like mine, doesn’t work) or do it on the phone, which requires a number of long and unpleasant steps. In any case, I had an appointment, and I did in fact speak with a human being.

I turned in the computer for repair, and I was informed via text that the work was completed a day later. I went to the store to pick up my resurrected laptop. I should have had an appointment for this, but somebody handled my issue anyway. The man explained that they had not been able to replicate the problem with the keyboard. He told me this as he played around with the computer. Then he realized that, yes indeed, the keyboard did not work. The tech sighed and said,

“This always happens during check out.”

He gave the crack in the corner a hard stare and told me,

“That may be the death sentence right there. There is lot going on underneath that crack, and the mother board might be damaged.”

I asked him, “So, you are telling me to buy a new one?”

“Well, you could…”

I interrupted him, “Never mind. Where do I go to buy a laptop?”

He pointed across the room. “The salesperson will help you.”

The sales guy did help, and then he took me right back to Geek Squad, so that they could transfer the data from the old computer to the new one. The bottom line was that it would take at least two days to transfer the data from the memory. I bowed to the inevitable and left both computers in their hands.

After two days, I once again went to the store. I got my brand-new Hewlett-Packard Omni Book and proudly took it home. I plugged it in and got online. It worked splendidly for five minutes and then it didn’t. It froze up completely every five minutes.

Fuck.

I restarted it and rebooted it and I finally went to the Best Buy site to chat with a Geek Squad agent with a multi-syllable first name. He did a complete tuneup on it. I tried it again. No change. I contacted Best Buy again, and this time the agent threw up his hands in despair and gave me an appointment to visit another store.

Nice.

I had to wait two days to go to the store. In the meantime, I tried to write on my blog using the partially incapacitated laptop. That was a bitch. I had to restart the computer several times and find the page where it locked up. I finally finished the essay (my previous post on this blog), but it cured my desire to go online.

As this saga continued, I came to understand that I really only need to go online for maybe a few minutes a day. The rest of my time was wasted reading articles on the Internet that either depressed or infuriated me. I had been trying to ween myself off the computer before it quit on me. I never take the laptop with me anywhere. It stays at home. I don’t have a tablet or a smart phone. I am attempting to avoid being a prisoner of the Matrix. I actually want to be part of the physical world in all of its beauty and horror. This takes a certain amount of effort.

I took the new but broken laptop to Geek Squad. A pleasant young woman asked whether I had gone online for help. I assured her that I had already jumped through all of the required hoops before coming to her. She determined that I was right. The piece of shit was broken. Fortunately, my coverage allowed me to swap out the new/old laptop for a new/new laptop. Of course, I had to let Geek Squad transfer the data again. That took another two days and required yet another appointment.

This afternoon, at long last, I went to the store, and the young lady presented me with a fresh, data-infused laptop. I took it home. Miracle of miracle, it works just fine.

That’s why I am writing to you now.