Screens
September 8, 2024
Jesus Christ: Yesterday, Today, and Forever ~
If you’ve heard at least a handful of my homilies, then you’ve heard me mention, at least in passing, how harmful screens our to our lives. Barring a chastisement (and one will come), screens of all kinds are here to stay: TVs, computer monitors, iPads, smart phones, and any others I don’t know about or that haven’t been invented yet. Screens can waste away a person’s life: dads coming home from work and plopping down on the couch to watch TV while neglecting the family all about him (night after night); or men not seeking a wife (and family) because television, video games, and pornography undermine that; or the person who is supposed to be doing their homework, or work of any kind, but don’t because they are spending their focus and time on screens; children being addicted to their smart phones, looking at it hundreds of times a day, amounting to hours a day on their phones, and of course being morally corrupted by what they are seeing on their phones. All of these have become true addictions in our lifetime.
While we can’t escape screens and the internet for the time being, we can seriously limit their use. Jesus wants us to. The fruits of a very limited screen life are amazing: time and head space for prayer, recollection, productivity, peace of mind, focus, sanity, joy at being with others, being virtuous, etc. Please make the effort to reign in your screen time. Go on-line searching for “ways to limit screen time.” Help your children by taking away their smart phones and giving them “dumb” phones without the internet or at least access to websites or applications. Your children will be mad at you, perhaps falsely accuse you, and be depressed for months, but it is worth it for their sake. Having the world’s storehouse of pornography and Satan’s lies in the palm of their hands is way too much responsibility for them. For the record, we must assume that every minor who has a smart phone is looking at things Jesus doesn’t want them to see or read. Unfortunately, that includes your kids and grandkids – yes yours. Not because they are bad kids, but because they are kids. Please help them. As parents, Our Lord holds you accountable for what your kids have in the palm of their hands.
I have attached an article on the other side of this page that might shed further light on this from the kid’s perspective. What you will never know from the mouths of children, because you don’t hear their confessions, is what they are truly looking at.
In Christ, I Love You,
Fr. Thomas Nathe
Majority of teens feel happy, peaceful without smartphones: Survey
The survey comes amid growing concerns about social media use and mental health impacts on teens.
By Alejandra O’Connell-Domenech | Mar. 11, 2024
A new Pew Research Center survey published Monday found that 74 percent of teens feel happy when they don’t have their smartphones on hand.
The 1,453-person survey also found that 72 percent of teens feel peaceful when they don’t have their phones.
Most teens between the ages of 13 and 17 — 95 percent — have or at least have access to a smartphone and most use the internet every day, according to Pew data.
A smaller but still significant portion of teens reported negative feelings when separated from their smartphones.
According to the Pew survey, 44 percent of teens said not having their phone made them feel anxious, while 40 percent and 30 percent said it made them feel upset and lonely, respectively.
Parents and advocates have grown more concerned about the consequences of social media on kids’ and teenagers’ mental health — prompting federal regulators to call for stricter regulations of the platforms.
But despite these concerns, most teens feel that the benefits of smartphones outweigh the negatives.
About 70 percent of teens said smartphones provide more benefits than harms for people their age, while 30 percent said the opposite.
Those attitudes differ among teens of different ages.
Younger girls, those aged 13 and 14, are more likely than older teen girls, younger teen boys, and older teen boys to say the harms of smartphone use outweigh the benefits.
Nearly 70 percent of teens said they think smartphones make it easier to pursue hobbies and interests, while 45 percent said the devices make it easier for young people to do well in school, according to the survey.
