‘Screenagers’ documentary probes into kids’ technology use

Parents, have you ever argued with your kids about technology? Do you worry that your son spends too much time playing video games or your daughter seems overly fixated on the number of “likes” she gets on her Instagram selfies?

Have you begun to wonder if technology and social media have turned your children into alien pod people and you have no clue how to bring them back to Earth?

You’re not alone.

That’s one of the messages found in the thoughtful documentary “Screenagers,” which has been generating buzz at school sites and other venues around the country. The film provides a sobering glimpse into the ways that technology is affecting our kids. It then offers — if not solutions, exactly — some ideas for families to begin the attempt to establish a partial restoration of normalcy.

Local parents will have an opportunity to see “Screenagers” on April 21, when it will be shown at Corona del Mar High School’s Sea King Theater. I’d highly recommend attending and, if possible, taking your kids. It could spark a meaningful family dialogue about the positive and negative aspects of technology and how to foster greater self-control over its use.

The film was directed by Dr. Delaney Ruston, a physician and filmmaker with an impressive academic and professional pedigree. She was educated at Cornell, Stanford, the University of California, San Francisco and, until recently, was on the faculty at the University of Washington.

She and her family recently moved from Seattle to New York, where she now works as the filmmaker-in-residence for the Stony Brook Medical Center.

Ruston has previously made documentaries on mental health and was inspired to create “Screenagers” by her own struggles finding an appropriate balance regarding digital technology use by her children.

She presents her personal story — her then-12-year-old daughter’s desire for a smartphone and the appeal of video games to her son, who was 14 at the time of filming — as a launching point for a larger discussion about how an over-reliance on technology can impact adolescents and family life.

Throughout the film’s approximately one-hour running time, she intersperses the anecdotal — parents and their children addressing their relationship with technology — among research data and insights offered by psychologists, scientists and other professionals.

Ruston said she learned that the average kid spends more than six hours a day looking at screens — and that doesn’t even count screen time used for schoolwork. Teenage boys spend an average of 11.3 hours a week playing video games.

Experts in the film discuss how all that technology use exacts a toll. For example, studies have shown that prolonged exposure to violent video games can result in decreased empathy and increased aggression.

There’s also discussion regarding the impact on adolescent brains from the continual back-and-forth between the virtual and real worlds; the negative effects on attention span and learning; and comparisons drawn between overdependence on digital devices and chemical addiction.

But where I found “Screenagers” most compelling was in the stories of individuals and families struggling to find the proper balance with technology use. There’s the grandmother learning to set limits for the teenage grandson she’s raising; the girl who battled depression after she succumbed to a boy’s pressure to send him a suggestive picture of her; a college freshman so consumed by video gaming that he stopped going to class; and a boy who cheerily confesses how easily he fools his parents into thinking he’s only using his digital devices to do homework.

The film doesn’t offer any facile solutions, but it does encourage parents not to surrender to a sense of futility and confusion, to a “That’s just the way it is now” way of thinking. Nor should they make the mistake of setting rules without explaining them to their kids in ways they will understand.

The most important points seem to be: First, pay attention to your kids’ technology use; second, talk to them about it.

In a recent phone interview, Ruston told me she is still working toward finding that proper balance with her kids, now 14 and 16, but they’ve made progress.

A big error she initially made, for instance, was forcing her daughter into a rigid “contract” regulating her smartphone use. She eventually realized she needed to enlist her daughter’s input on the rules.

Indeed, an amusing moment in the film comes when Ruston’s daughter says that she also becomes frustrated by her mother’s frequent technology-induced distractedness.

Ruston and her family also now engage in regular discussions she calls “Tech Talk Tuesdays,” which, somewhat surprisingly, have been a hit with her kids.

“It’s still a day-to-day struggle, how much to parent and how much leeway” to give her kids, she said.

But Ruston’s motivation in making the film was to bring the issue out into the public realm. She wants to enable parents to feel more comfortable acknowledging that they’re in over their heads, and to realize that it’s OK to set limits on technology use.

“Some people just feel overwhelmed by it. A lot of it happens in silos,” she said. “I wanted to get people talking.”

See the film if you can. And then talk to your kids about it.

PATRICE APODACA is a former Newport-Mesa public school parent and former Los Angeles Times staff writer. She lives in Newport Beach.