This simple gadjet is fantastic.
It's a lockable box for your smart phone fondle stick. You just put the phone inside, close it and set for how long it will remain locked up. It's not made of titanium or anything, just cheap plastic - you can still access your phone – you'll just have to bust the box, and then you'll have to buy a new one.
My daughter Lyndi was a toddler/little girl in the flip-phone era, and people kept the bleeping things in their pockets, purses and rucksacks, except for phone calls. It was not a substitute brain or pacifier- an extra appendage and constant tether to the digital world of unreality. So she grew up among people acting kind of like humans. Though in my opinion she now uses her smart-phone too much, having grown up in semi-reality, she knows how to moderate, and can navigate through life without the devilish device constantly in front of her face. However, with my sons, born in the everybody-with-an-iphone era, it's different.
Roy, trying to get into the same college as Lyndi, has to keep his nose in the books and not be distracted. He went out and got the smart-phone lockbox and uses it all the time. I ask him, “Is your phone in there?”
-Yep.
-How many hours do you have it set for?
-Five. Yesterday I had it set for 14 'cause of the test I had this morning.
What a great invention! I want to get one for each of my other kids. Will they use it? Perhaps not; Roy bought the thing for himself. Great behaviour-modification ideas that come from dad are less appealing than self-generated habits and goals. My dad always tried to get me into reading early on, but I just wanted to goof around outside with my friends or watch TV. “Hey, Danny, here's a book I got for you. You'll love it!”
The hard cover of Carry on, Mr. Bowditch was an ugly shade of green with the sketch of a big, 18th-century sailing ship.
I think I held that book in my hand a hundred times, looking at the frigate on the cover, counting the cannon ports and stuff, but I never got past page 2. Later dad tried to interest me in the Horatio Hornblower series. “Oh boy, you'll love these books! They are the finest stories on the British navy during the time of the Empire!”
Now in my teens I believed him and thought I really should read one or two volumes out of the Hornblower series, but a great, rollicking, salty story of life on the high seas still didn't do it for me.
Then, finally, only a few years ago, well into my 50s, I picked up Two Years Before the Mast. Great story! Fine writing! A classic! I think I'll go shove a brand-new copy in Roy's face and say, “Now Roy, you gotta read this! Yu..you'll love it! Whu..why don't you put down the test studies for a bit and give it a shot? It...it'll help your English! So, you see, it's about a kid of around your age in early 19th century Boston, and he goes down to the wharf, and...and...”
OK, maybe I'll have about as much success as my dad with that one, but I will not give up on my fatherly, save-the-world, behavior-modification projects. We're doomed if we let these infernal phones rule us. Roy says that kids at his high school spend about 90% of their time outside of school on their smart phones. Riding the trains now you see almost all of the high-schoolers spending their commute time hooked into their umbilical chord to unreality. I was quite happy the other day to see two boys just talking- a couple baseball toughs with the crew cuts from a local voc/tech high school. Of course the second their conversation waned they got their phones out.
Hence the SFS Project. Screen-Free-Sunday!
Pretty self-explanatory- it's all in the name. What do I intend to do? Simply offer a carrot that will interest kids- an activity where dumb-phones aren't involved.
Sunday hiking club (and other stuff like river floating, afternoons at the park, and if the generosity and funding comes in, water-skiing, out-of-town field trips, etc.)
Wednesday-night game club (board and card games of the fun and thinking variety)
In both cases, participants leave their phones at home. The activities will be fun and if there is a dull moment kids will have no electronic pacifier to turn to; they’ll have to fill dead time with talking and the usual goofy antics that get laughs and kill boredom, like in the days of yore.
Wait a minute. You expect teenagers to want to spend time with you? You think high schoolers who just want to blend in and be cool will want to hang with crusty ol’ Shumway?
Watch it, there! You might be surprised; I still have a spring in my step and sometimes my wise cracks can breathe life even into the worst-case, screen-addled minds.
As part of my SFS project, I've written a children's book, called Look Up, Japan! If I can get some readership for this one, I'll create an entire Look Up series, tailor made for every possible region and culture.
The idea of Look Up is, we take a trip around the town/county/state/nation for the coolest spots. At each spot, a bunch of local kids are doing their normal thing, which nowadays means they are glued to their phones. But look around you, dumb dumbs- the coolest stuff is right in front of your face!
In each situation, the group of kids snap out of their stupor and takes in the wonder, but one slowpoke still can't take his eyes off the screen. Here are the words of the first few pages of Look Up, Japan, with a couple sample pictures. I have yet to add the protagonists so you'll have to imagine the framing of the kids in these pages.
There seem to be two kinds of people, too.
One kind are the looker-downers. (photo of brain-addled kids on their dumb phones)
and the other, the looker-uppers. (photo of bright-eyed cherubs looking up)
Which kind of person are you?
Junya keeps waiting for a software update.
He’s going to miss out on the Miyajima gate. (Junya on fondle stick, while friends jump up and race off toward interesting thing)
Look Up, Junya! (Junya finally ditches phone, looks up, and sees:
While Toshio keeps searching around for a source of power,
his friends are about to go up the Tokyo Tower! (same deal with photo sequence)
Look up, Toshio!
Chiaki thinks sending cutesy emojis is so awesome.
She should take a break and look at the cherry blossoms!
Look up, Chiaki!
You get the idea. Not all the spots are typical sightseeing places. There are also spots with crazy and weird, of particular interest to the young crowd.
So, in my last week in Japan, before coming back to Montana, I'm taking a road trip with three of my kids, and we're going to scope out the spots in my book, and get the framing of the subjects and scenes just right, so that later I'll be ready to recruit local children to play the parts. I think this book will be a winner. It's going to come out in Japanese and English. With a little publishing success, I expect to do other versions:
Look Up, France!
Look Up, Germany!
Look Up, Shanghai!
Look Up, Montana!
Look Up, East Lansing!
Look Up, Yonkers!
Look Up, Juarez-El Paso border region!
In a couple weeks, I should have some good on-the-road stories to tell, and put them in a stack or two. Meanwhile, there are interviews to do. Stay tuned!
OOPS! SFS! :)
NSS! Excellent idea! Also for most ADULTS these days. Can’t wait to see the book!