Common Sense Media Digital Well-Being Conference

Anyone who has been around GTG for awhile knows I'm doing a personal quest this past year on the good, the bad, and the ugly of screen time. I've long had a love-hate relationship--it's my job, it's my hobby, it's how I write this blog, it's in my house and soaked in with my kids. At times, I'm very good with disconnected, and other times it can be my own personal wrestle-fest. (True confession: last night I "got in trouble" while watching a movie with the family here at home, as I was too sucked into my phone simultaneously.)

It's tricky, being the adult and parenting tech, when we adults are human too. We all can get sucked into the dopamine rush akin to the slot machine mentality of "likes" on social media, or return texts, or busy trying to see what we're missing out on (#FOMO). It takes a lot of education and also a decent amount of willpower to redirect our efforts.

Luckily, there are organizations such as Common Sense Media, and I was privileged to be able to attend their April 4th Truth About Tech Conference in DC at Georgetown University's School of Continuing Studies. We had a full day.

The conference opened the conference with this video:

The day was packed, 9am-5pm with sessions 30-45 minute sessions running all day long. It was a live-streamed event, so the exciting thing is you can go see what I saw on the Common Sense Media YouTube playlist. My favorites were Common Sense Media's CEO Jim Steyer's opening comments, Massachusetts' Senator Ed Markey's Opening Remarks about legislation they are working on, Obama's US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy's comments on connection and social relations under the lens of technology, and March For Our Lives Co-Founder Cameron Kaskey's commentary on his experience and using technology to build a movement.

Cameron Kaskey with
moderator Elizabeth Galicia

Of course, you might have your own personal favorites.

I encourage you to check out their playlist so you too can build up your wealth of information on this very important topic.

To learn more, you also can check out Common Sense Media's portal on Digital Well-Being for more resources.

Additionally, I'm looking forward to live-streaming Common Sense Media's Designing for Our Future: Solutions for Digital Well-Being May 29th Silicon Valley Tech Conference, held at the Computer History Museum in combination with Stanford's d.school.

Jim Steyer with Dr. Vivek Murthy

Video from https://youtu.be/sJFO6SjtR3w; images from my camera, screenshot of the agenda from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/livestream-april-2019