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Mobile Technology: Healthy Habits for Your Family

Do your kids regularly check their Facebook page? Look at their cell phone constantly? Play online games for days? How about frequently shop, text, or chat online?

If so, they fit right in with the norm.

A recent study reveals that youth consume media for an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes a day (click to tweet). And given the amount of time they spend using more than one medium at a time, they actually pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes worth of media content into those daily 7½ hours!

Learning how to balance time spent online with all of life’s other activities is one of the great challenges of the digital age. Follow these tips below to establish healthy habits in your home: (click to tweet)

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DO:

  • Model for your children healthy online/offline time balance.
  • Keep family time “media free” by banning digital devices from the dinner table.
  • Help your children select creative alternatives to digital media consumption.
  • Charge phones each night in a central location where they can’t interrupt sleep.
  • Create an “electronic media free” environment in your children’s bedrooms.
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DON’T:

  • Use smartphones as alarm clocks.
  • Allow TV or screen time if your child is younger than two years old.
  • Exceed 2 hours of TV or screen time if your child is older than two.
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