Integrating Technology

Inside the “Igloo” at Runway.

We have refined our habits and set a good example. We have gotten children to agree on limits and boundaries, at least in principle. Then we have even gone the extra mile and participated in their play.

That is enough, right? I mean, I can stop there and call it a day can’t I?

Sure! No.

We are about half way through this guide. The most important ideas are yet to come. Now we learn one of the most useful metaphors, and it is nothing new but I have a twist on it: the dieting metaphor.

The network, the agent, or the expert system is there and a conversation is happening all the time, with or without us. We can ignore it, but it is not going away.

Instead let us acknowledge it, embrace it, and incorporate machine intelligence into our lives in a meaningful way. I want to show children that I can master this, and that it does not control me. My goal is to give them a sense of self-control and agency over the tools. Here is how I do this:

1. Adopt a technology diet of moderation and “snacking”.
2. Learn to counter the “tricks of the trade” used by developers and designers.
3. Develop strategies of simplicity.

I aim for a kind of cultural literacy. Young people will always be interested in video games, so incorporating them in my daily routine might be more realistic. If I deny them the chance to at least try them, they are going to miss out and feel excluded by their peers. Scroll to the bottom to learn some important questions to ask ourselves about this.

A Healthy Technology Diet

One parent told me that they occasionally have a technology “reset” in their house. They have strict limits on when to play video games: only Friday through Sunday. But when it “gets too addictive” parents have to call an extended time out.

3D-printed Admiral Ackbar says, “Technology — it’s a trap!”

I am trying to avoid this kind of result. Again think of a diet: if I go for weeks without even looking at a donut, but then permit myself to visit the donut shop again and buy half a dozen, it is just not healthy for the mind or the body. Give myself permission to act, and I will eventually go back to old behavior.

I had this philosophy when the App Store began: no impulse buying of apps over one dollar. I figured if I kept to this, then I would have to seriously consider any purchasing decision. This slows down my consumption and I end up spending less money on software I do not need.

This constraint lasted for a long time, but pretty soon I gave myself permission to buy $2 apps, and so on. This was before the App Store became a treasure trove of great games. Nowadays I could spend hundreds of dollars a month just on new games, let alone in-app purchases. In-app purchases are like soda-pop: categorically not good for me.

If I give myself permission to do something once, it is much easier to justify it a second or third time, but I do have my limits.

The Digital Diet: The 4-step plan to break your tech addiction and regain balance in your life

Many parents, and even professionals propose the concept of a “digital detox” or time away from technology as a blanket solution. I appreciate the intent, but this concept falls short for me. It seems not only impractical but maybe even impossible for those of us who are on call or required to remain connected.

Detox enables a person to return to the bad behavior.

Additionally, the convenience of the camera attached to our phones makes it difficult to leave that tool behind, even on a hike out of cellular range. Honestly, I love going “off the grid” but I secretly hope that my GPS is working so those photos are geo-tagged.

The point of arrival, like unhooking from technology for a while or giving up a habit, is symptom of achievement, not the solution. If I absolutely must create an artificial restraint, there are tools for that as well. I try the Circle router, or the Moment app, Break Time, or Rescue Time. I pack a paperback book. Lately I have started sketching on pad with pencil more often.

I still have my first personal computer, and btw it boots up faster than my iPhone.

I grew up without a computer in the house until I was sixteen. Then we got a refurbished Apple IIc from my dad’s work. It lived within his home office, in a desk with a closing cabinet. It was out of sight until needed.

Today, devices are everywhere, all the time. They are available even when they are not needed. It is tempting, in reaction to “information overload”, to isolate them like that old Apple computer in the cabinet. However, I think “out of sight” is not necessarily “out of mind” these days, and it will become increasingly difficult to achieve this as young people go out into the world.

Metaphorically, I do try to “put them in their place.” What that means for our family is that we think of devices and technology as tools rather than toys. They are tools to learn, to get things done, or feed curiosity. They are tools to entertain, but I see devices in the style of juggling fire versus the style of playing cards. The worst I can get from playing cards is a paper cut, but a cell phone can burn the mind as easily as light the fire of imagination.

I try not to lend the boys my personal phone for any reason. This is mostly because I need access to it, but it is also to keep them from being interrupted by notifications or other intrusions during play. I learned the hard way that notifications should not come in via the iPad. The ergonomics of the phone are also terrible for long-term play, and it is difficult to include a friend or a brother via that tiny screen.

They sometimes use my work iPad, but it also does not show notifications. This is another way that I put the device in its place. The bigger surfaces are for work, creation, and concentration. The little ones are for communication and mobility.

As for the “big screen,” I made an important choice early on and it has paid off. It can hardly be called a “television” any more because it does not receive terrestrial TV transmissions. I am a “cord-cutter,” someone who does not subscribe to cable programming. Instead, we hooked the big screen up to an Apple TV, which limits our intake and helps to structure our content choices.

The TV lives in the den. There is no screen in the family room. There is no screen in the bedroom. In my kitchen is an EO-1, but it only displays photos, one at a time. The boys know how to program it, from choices that I curate.

Limiting the big screen is a crucial decision. It means that “watching” involves gathering together on the big couch, usually snuggling up and not eating or playing or doing anything else besides. The effect of using the structure of our home to program the rhythm of life has been fantastic.

Watching With Them

Watching video, even if it is educational content, is a form of passivity that I know has its place. Sometimes I just want to see how something is done. I watched a YouTube video of gutting fish before trying it on my own. However, I had to re-watch it months later when I had not repeated the task in so long.

Watching video rarely leads to deep learning for me. Of course, everyone is different, and I suspect it is the same with children. When I ask my boys about educational content days later, they rarely remember the details. It is only by doing the thing, or physically exploring, writing about it, or solving a problem that deep learning takes hold for me and my children.

In my view, passive educational programs should be paired with some kind of application. If we watch Cosmos, I want to go out into the world soon afterwards and examine dust, or dirt, or water, or fix the telescope. If we watch something about free diving, I want to practice breathing and breath holds afterwards.

Just because the activity is passive in the moment does not mean that the story is over once the video is complete. This is only the beginning of the learning process. I have to make it real for them.

Designing By Principle

The principle of integration is to give each piece of technology a purpose. Rather than isolate the big screen, cover it up, or attempt to ignore it, I promoted it and gave it an honored place in our den like a trophy. It is now completely integrated into our viewing experience, which only happens under certain conditions.

EO-1 is integrated into our kitchen, in a way that adds beauty and celebrates our family in pictures. The screen does not flash, and there is no sound.

iPad is integrated into our habits, in a way that promotes discussion and awareness. iPad at the table is great for showcasing classical music or jazz to create a calm, thoughtful manner.

An iPad has a large enough screen to make an exception to any of these rules. When the boys want to have a dance party in the kitchen, I crank it up. When the family wants a little game time as a reward, we gather around. The “place” for this piece of technology is right in the middle of us, bringing us together, and lighting up all of our faces at once.

I have found that integration is a process of continuous refinement. Like polishing or sharpening a blade, my habits around using and teaching with devices have to be regularly honed. A good example of this is the road trip.

It is a six-and-a-half hour drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles. That is time for more than three movies, back to back. I am sometimes tempted to queue up the Pixar, and let the boys garnish with Netflix.

Recently, though, I made up a rule: no watching video until we hit Route 5, the main corridor down to LA County. Also, no watching after Route 5, while we navigate the cities close to our destination. I bring along books, cards, and food. We talk, if only to discuss what we are seeing. We play license-plate games. I tell stories. I narrate movie soundtracks.

My goal is to give a purpose to the activity of watching. It is there to allow me to concentrate on the challenging, high-speed aspects of the drive. It is there to allow them to break the monotony of going straight for such a long period with nothing else to see.

This way, watching a good show is something to anticipate. We have to earn it, by making our way. This teaches geography, and it helps the boys learn to read street signs and recognize landmarks. Also, this keeps us from getting too isolated from each other during the drive.

The place for my iPad in the car is strung between the two front seats, equidistant from both children. This is both ergonomic and fair.

Integrating iPad into our drive this way becomes an intention rather than a habit. If I can look for ways to put these tools in their place, rather than creating rules that get bent or broken, the children will ​understand ​​more easily​ ​​why I am doing it. I have found that this cuts down on the bargaining, and makes my job as a parent and a teacher much easier.

Subverting the Developer Playbook

Designers and developers work hard to draw my into their experience, and keep me there. Everything from the splash screen, to the loading experience, to the usability of every feature is painstakingly thought out. Every millisecond of interaction is measured and reduced. My attention as a user is their highest priority.

Most apps will get launched once, and not again. If they are launched a second time, the average in-app experience is 30 seconds before a user’s attention expires. So, app creators need to capture a user’s imagination and inspire them to continue within that 30 second window.

Think about the challenge here: every trick and tool in the industry is employed to make sure that I, the user, am successful within the first half-minute of that initial tap. I am going to expose some of those tricks here, so that we can recognize the fluff from the peanut butter, and make better choices about which software is great and worth our time (see: Skylibrary, by the Reading Rainbow team).

I once read that the most minutes of music are listened to, not on the radio, or on the Internet, or via CD, but while playing video games. In-game music is repetitive and relentless. It is designed to trigger feelings of excitement, sometimes panic, in order to drive continuous interaction.

Of course there are exceptions to this, some games have pleasantly reflective music (like Tengami for example, or Monument Valley). However, there is one simple way to avoid immersion if that is the goal: switch to mute (or turn the sound all the way down) during gameplay.

I actually have my phone on constant mute, mostly for the benefit of my colleagues, but also for my own sanity. I do not want my apps tweeting, beeping, pinging, or ticking at me. I have a sensitive ear, and I am highly susceptible to “ear worms” or songs and sounds that get “stuck” in my head.

When there is an option to turn off music only inside a game, I check it. This is my means of exercising control over my environment. Some games like Hearthstone are greatly enriched by the music, and some require sound for audio cues and such. This is fine, as long as the tones are not repetitive (like LEGO Star Wars, omg), or intrusively loud.

The opposite goes for the children’s experience. I want to hear what is going on inside their game or their experience, especially if I cannot be there next to them while they are playing. Subconsciously, I am able to mark progress in the background this way. I allow myself to tune out and tune in occasionally, if I can, and keep tabs on their usage organically.

Because I am so sensitive to repetition, if I hear them making the same sounds with a frequency that would annoy me, that is a solid indication that they are getting too much stimulation themselves. I use my own “shortcomings” or annoyances to temper their exposure. I never banish them to the next room, but I do ask them to keep the volume down to at least half way when they are playing a game or watching a video that might distract me.

Conquering sound is almost half the battle when it comes to subverting the designer playbook. My favorite choices for the boys are musical apps like GarageBand, that allow them to make their own sounds. Focusing on apps that only have the purpose of making sound is a perfect way to avoid the other half of the designer bag of tricks.

The best designers have a ruthless obsession with simplicity. Complex visual elements are the mark of a designer without the willingness or skill to make difficult choices about what to eliminate. Great design begins with the iconography, and the app icon itself, which is like the first, best advertisement for the software.

If an app or game has an icon that does not impress me, I think twice about purchasing it or even downloading it for free. Just because something is free does not mean the cost to me is nothing.

If I am using a free service, I am the product.

I pay in time and energy, I pay in space on my device, or space on my screen, or I pay in bandwidth to update that thing. I may pay by revealing my personal information. I pay in brainpower: when I must sort through what I need, from what is useless or less interesting.

Great Apps for Kids

Strategies of Simplicity

I have found that simplicity is its own reward. I work hard to eliminate choices, clutter, and complexity of any kind in my life. I delegate, defer, distance, and debate any factor that adds time or traffic to success. From impulse to action should be as few steps as possible.

Less time with email means more time with family.

I have delegated the process of sorting my incoming mail to a service called SaneBox, which intelligently puts unimportant messages into the @SaneLater box and sends me an email once daily to review them. It will also send email to a “black hole” so that I do not even need to unsubscribe from unwanted messages.

Simplicity as a parent and teacher looks like fewer instructions, less time to obedience, and less stuff to clean up. In my house, everything has a place and I am always putting things away. I expect an immediate response to questions, and I usually get it. If I have to clean something up more than once a day, it is going into storage.

Improving the Process

I have read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to go deeper on this. Basically, what I learned is that I should always be tidying up. It is a regular habit, not something I am supposed to do all at once.

One pick to rule them all.

Process is a powerful technology.

In practice, this means that I deal with things as I encounter them. If I see something on the floor, it gets picked up right away. Stinky sock? In the hamper. Guitar pick? Stick it in between the strings of a guitar. In the kitchen, I clean as I cook. I am relentless.

Tidying up also applies to processes as well. I am always relocating important kitchen items into the places I frequent most often. I got a lot of good tips from the fictional book Cheaper By the Dozen (and the non-fiction version). I learned how to make showers shorter, among other things.

Teaching Simplicity

I teach simplicity by example. The boys learn how to help me get started on a task that they cannot complete. Simplicity is a habit, it is an obsession.

A hundred little things form a pattern:

1. I teach the children to help out.
2. I eliminate steps from busy times by adding steps to slow times.
3. I get rid of stuff—just get rid of it — or keep from receiving things and ending up with things.
4. I save money and time on the big items, like surfaces, sturdy reusables, and quality goods.
5. I stay focused on reducing inertia in the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom, where we spend the most time.

If I follow these principles, I will reduce steps from impulse to action, and clear my mind of clutter quickly. Clearing clutter, both mentally and physically, is the first best step to simplicity. The fewer things to consider, the fewer things to sort or details to discard or options to ignore, the less time to action and the lighter the load.

Simplicity is an ideal, a means to the end of the war for my attention.

REVIEW

Consider these questions about the concepts of integration and moderation:

1. What is the digital equivalent of a “snack” in my house?
2. In what ways am I vulnerable to the “tricks of the trade” when it comes to software and mobile devices?
3. How can I remove steps in the process of getting ready in the morning?
4. Is it worth taking time to teach my child to perform a chore or a regular task, if this means saving me time in the long run?
5. What are five things I can throw out, give away, or give up this week?

Next Reading

Planning for a Good Transition

Back to the Beginning

Parenting and Connected Devices

Check back on Tuesday for the next edition.

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