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Page Count:176
Dimensions: 7.5 × 9 × 0.8 in
Publication Date:July 11, 2023
ISBN:9780865719828
Sustainability:Printed on 100% recycled paper
Printed in:Canada
Audiobook Narrator:Katherine Johnson Martinko
Audiobook Length:5:41:12

Childhood Unplugged

Practical Advice to Get Kids Off Screens and Find Balance

Screens are everywhere. Kids spend an average of 7.5 hours on digital devices daily with profoundly negative consequences. Childhood Unplugged takes a bold approach to regulating children’s use of digital media, suggesting more time spent offline will benefit their resilience, independence, and family relationships.

Book Awards

FINALIST | 2023 Foreword INDIES Awards: Family & Relationships

Earn up to 25 Points.

Ditch the devices and bring back the magic of being a kid

Screens are everywhere. Children spend an average of 7.5 hours on digital devices every day with profoundly negative consequences. While some tech may “amplify” real-life experience, the vast majority undermines it by limiting physical activity, creating anxiety, or damaging self-esteem. Childhood Unplugged takes a bold approach to creating healthy boundaries around the use of digital media.

Drawing on her own family’s experience, plus interviews with digital minimalists, educators, and child development experts, Katherine Martinko presents:

  • Meticulously researched analysis of the impacts of excessive screen time on children’s physical, neurological, emotional, and social development
  • Specific pathways to reduced screen exposure, naturally leading to more time spent outdoors, increased confidence and empathy, and more creative and active play
  • Inspiration for caregivers overwhelmed by the thought of severing ties with the digital babysitter
  • Age-appropriate advice for parents of babies and toddlers, school-aged children, and adolescents.

Taking a calming, nonjudgmental approach, Childhood Unplugged is a lifeline for parents, caregivers, educators, and anyone who questions the role of digital media and yearns for the young people in their life to experience the profound beauty and magic of childhood.

Table of Contents

  • Acknowledgments
  • Foreword by Lenore Skenazy
  • Introduction: The Beautiful Chaos
  • Part I: The Personal and Social Costs of Screens
    • Chapter 1: The Kids Are Not All Right
    • Chapter 2: Amplify, Don’t Amputate
  • Part II: How to Take Control of Screens
    • Chapter 3: Begin as You Mean to Go On (Babies & Toddlers)
    • Chapter 4: Freedom to Play (Elementary-Aged Kids)
    • Chapter 5: Grant Freedom, Demand Responsibility (Adolescents)
    • Chapter 6: But Everyone’s Doing It
    • Chapter 7: The Parent’s Role
    • Chapter 8: School of Screens
  • Further Reading
  • Endnotes
  • Index
    About the Author
    About New Society Publishers

Accessibility Information

Product Page Accessibility Display

Conformance Status: EPUB Accessibility Compliant | WCAG level AA Compliant
Screen Reader Compatibility: Designed for an optimal screen reader experience and fully accessible to persons with disabilities.

Content Enhancements

Alternative Text for Images: Descriptive text is provided for all images, ensuring visual content is fully accessible.
Table of Contents: Easy, direct navigation through a clean, structured table of contents.
Reading Order: Enforces a logical and consistent reading order for sequential, uninterrupted content consumption.
Page List: Includes an accurate page list for physical book page referencing and exact academic citation synchronization.
Structural Navigation: Built with a clear hierarchical layout for easy content traversal and section hopping.
Semantic Structure: Employs appropriate semantic markup to ensure absolute text clarity, meaning, and text-to-speech accuracy.

Reading Optimization

Unrestricted Formatting Preferences: User-configured assistive tools, custom typography scaling, line-spacing modifications, and native reading application options are never locked or disabled.
Color Independence: Textual layouts, data states, and links use distinct styles or symbols so that color changes are never the sole method of conveying critical information.
High-Contrast Design: Typography contrast levels comfortably exceed standard baseline parameters to reduce eye strain under any lighting environment.
Non-Visual Accessibility Support: All non-decorative editorial text and data visualizations are optimized to support reading entirely without sight.
Language Tagging: Embedded text attributes direct text-to-speech engines to use correct pronunciation defaults automatically.
Blank Page Removal: Unnecessary blank pages are completely eliminated to ensure a streamlined, smooth reading flow.

Contact Information

For further information or questions contact [email protected]

More from Katherine Johnson Martinko

Meet the Author

author Katherine Martinko

Katherine Martinko is a columnist for The Globe and Mail and a leading voice in the movement to reclaim childhood from screens. A speaker for Jonathan Haidt’s Anxious Generation campaign, she shares her expertise internationally through talks, her popular newsletter The Analog Family, and appearances on national TV, radio, and podcasts.

Her writing has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, CBC, Global News, Motherly, and After Babel. A former senior editor at Dotdash Meredith, she has also worked with Martha Stewart, Allrecipes, and Treehugger.

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About the Publisher

New Society Publishers has been a leader in sustainable living books since 1980. Our books are printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper to support the health of the planet.

B Corporation, SDG, and FSC Mixed Paper.

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