A PA Unplugged Public Health Announcement
Slow Tech Your Life
Five steps to take back your family's time, attention, and connection.
Step 1 · You
It starts with technoference
- 1.The everyday interruption of human connection by a device.
- 2.“Sorry, what did you say? Hang on. One second, honey.”
Slow tech for kids starts with slow tech for adults.
- Check your screen time report. How do you feel about the total number?
- Notice which apps are most “problematic” for you. It could be a social media app, or something more seemingly innocuous, like email or news.
- Think about the moments when your kids are in the room. Are you often on your phone while they’re around?
This is a judgement-free zone. Awareness is the first step to ensuring that your devices aren't crowding out opportunities for connection with your kids and family.
Step 2 · Your Device
Make it boring
Three settings changes today:
- Turn off notifications. Think about which contacts need to get through, and which can wait until you choose to check your phone. Every buzz can throw your focus for up to 20 minutes!
- Grayscale. A phone without color is a tool, not a slot machine.
- Delete ALL social media, games, and gambling. If it's engineered to keep you on it as long as possible, delete!
Need reinforcements? Brick, Opal, and Foqos block apps on a schedule, so the decision gets made once instead of two hundred times a day.
Step 3 · Your Setting
Decide where devices live
Rules about places beat rules about minutes. Pick your device-free zones, write them down, and apply them to everyone, parents included:
- Device-free bedrooms
- Device-free meals
- Device-free zones
- Device-free viewing
- Device use in common areas only
- Device hours of operation
- Device-free kid playdates
- Device-free tween & teen hangouts
Biggest payoff: bedrooms and meals.
Step 4 · Your Surroundings
Reclaim the in-between moments
The phone's favorite territory is the in-between: the wait, the ride, the line. Take those back, phone in your pocket or in the car:
- In the car
- Waiting rooms
- The bathroom
- Exercise
- Family walks & outings
- Sports and activities
Step 5 · Your Actions
Fill the space with real life
Slow tech isn't subtraction: we need to help kids enrich their lives with real friendship, real freedom, and real fun (h/t to our friends Catherine Price and Jonathan Haidt). That means no iPad kids: every hour on the lowest-friction babysitter ever invented is an hour not spent on…
- Imagination
- Outdoor play
- Chores
- Conversation
- Reading
- Taking age-appropriate risks
- Practicing an instrument
- Building creativity
All five steps on one page
Print it, stick it on the fridge, hand it to a friend.
The Big One
Delay smartphones
The biggest slow-tech decision a family makes is when the smartphone arrives. Most American kids have one by 11, and a 2026 study following more than 10,000 children found that those who got a first phone at 12 or 13 were more likely to show signs of clinically significant mental health problems by 13 than peers who still didn't have one.
We hear from parents that they regret handing over the smartphone when they did, but it felt like “all the other kids had one” and they didn't want their child to be isolated.
Talk to your neighbors, sports coaches, and the parents of your kids' friends. A new norm is possible through collective action.
Staying reachable doesn't take a smartphone, at any age. Very few adults have considered a basic phone or a smartwatch for themselves, and it is worth thinking about: you get your own time and attention back, and kids notice what their parents carry more than they notice a rule. See Alternative Devices for the options.
Talking About It
How to talk to your kids (and other parents)
With your child, kind and clear:
"Phones are designed to be addictive, even for adults. My brain is fully developed, and I still struggle to put mine down. Your brain is still growing, and I want to protect it. This isn't just about you — it's true for every kid. I love you too much to give you something I know could harm you right now."
With other parents, you don't have to convince anyone. Say what your family is doing and why. Most are relieved to hear they aren't the only ones planning to do something different.
Go Deeper
Key Resources
- Surgeon General's Warning on the Harms of Screen Use · U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services, 2026. The federal advisory, including the 5 Ds of healthy screen use.
- Smartphone Ownership, Age of Acquisition, and Health Outcomes in Early Adolescence · Barzilay et al., Pediatrics, 2026. The study behind the age-12 finding above: 10,588 children followed through early adolescence.
- The Amazing Generation · Jonathan Haidt & Catherine Price. Written for 9-to-12-year-olds themselves: a guide to fun and freedom in a screen-filled world.
- Sapien Labs: Age of First Smartphone & Mental Wellbeing · Sapien Labs. The later a child gets a smartphone, the better their adult mental health.
- Alternative Devices · PA Unplugged. Basic phones, watches, and landlines that keep anyone in the family reachable.
Take Action
Sign the Commitment
Delay smartphones until at least 9th grade and social media until at least 16, together with families across Pennsylvania.
Sign the CommitmentPick a different device
Basic phones, smartwatches, and landlines that keep a family reachable without the internet in anyone's pocket. For adults as well as kids.
Alternative DevicesDon't do it alone
Join PA Unplugged and connect with families near you who are on the same page.
Join us