Put Your Family on a Media Diet

Between the computer, television, your cell phone or smartphone and all the other media you observe each day, have you ever thought about what portion of your life all that actually consumes?

Admit it – you’re playing with your kids’ game players too sometimes…

What about your kids? Do they have a cell phone, computer or video game player that they spend time using?

A new free calculator was released last month to help families take note of the time they spend consuming electronics and media versus how much time they spend interacting with people. It is called the Family Media Diet Calculator from iShine, a Christian-based media group dedicated to ministering to “tweens” – kids ages 7 to 13 – and their families.

The calculator is not meant to discourage electronics and media use. It is meant to help make families more aware of their use of these materials and decide if they need to change their habits or be more deliberate about using these tools.

“We as parents must be deliberate of what media our kids consume, understanding that it is forming the way our kids look at everything – self image, friends, parents, leaders, themselves,” remarks iShine founder and Chief Creative Officer Robert Beeson. “If we as parents aren’t actively forming the person our kids are becoming – make no mistake – someone else is.”

Families enter their usage of various media as well as their other activities into the calculator and the site will generate a custom analysis detailing how much time they spend using media compared to taking part in recreational or faith-based activities, family time and reading.

According to iShine, it is estimated 20 million tweens in the United States spend upwards of 25 hours per week either watching television or playing video games while they spend 1 hour a week in church.

George Barna, of The Barna Group which specializes in Christian cultural research, says the only activity kids spend more time on than using media is sleeping.

I input some numbers for our high school freshman as a guess just to see what would happen. The report it generated gave the number of hours a week and days a month total spent on each activity such as texting, playing video games, playing sports or reading. For this example, it came up with 69% of his free time is spent in the “virtual” world and 31% in the real world. Interesting to think about.

So take some time and input your family’s information. You might be surprised at what you find! Leave a comment if you would like to share your findings with others.

To learn more about iShine, visit their website where they have radio, video, music and other fun activities for your tweens.