This post is sponsored by wellbeing.google in partnership with the Forward Influence Network. All thoughts and opinions are my own. #ad #DigitalWellbeing
Labor Day Weekend is always busy for my family. Most years this three-day weekend allows us the time to visit many of our state’s musical heritage along the Mississippi Blues Trail, a trail created by the Mississippi Blues Commission in 2006 to commemorate notable historical sites related to the birth, growth, and influence of the blues music throughout the great state of Mississippi. We were able to see many attractions along the trail. Een a few remote locations. Locations that left me all a little worried about the quality of our phone’s service while on the road.
Then it occurred to me, these moments when your family should be emersed in our state’s cultural heritage, why are we all so worried about our phones? Moreover, what can I do to ensure that moments such on our Memorial Day weekend trip aren’t so diminished? How can my family strike a healthy balance between the technology we use in our everyday lives, while still being in the present and focused on these things should matter just a little bit more. Like travel and quality time together. This is where the wellbeing.google can help.
Google #DigitalWellbeing Initiative
The Google #DigitalWellbeing initiative, in partnership with FOSI, an international, nonprofit organization that works to make the online world safer for kids. FOSI convenes leaders in the industry and nonprofit sectors to provide new solutions in the field of online safety, has created an initiative designed to provide the public with helpful products that improve peoples’ lives. To bring families together. For as much as technology aids in the running of our day-to-day lives, it also works as a means of distracting us from the things that matter the most, like family.
Google feels a sense of responsibility in helping to make such things better, which is why they have created digital wellbeing tools and resources to make these necessary changes take form. Including product solutions, tips, and easy-to-access online resources designed to help people maintain a balance between their individual family dynamic and the technology that makes their homes and businesses run in ways that work best for them. I for one, need help in this area! As its oh-so-easy to get caught up in our daily routine. So it’s nice to have tools that can help us bridge the divide between tech and togetherness at home!
Friends, what does your current experience with everyday tech look like? Regardless of your situation, Google has tools available to you to best see what services best fit your needs. Including a tool that asks you simple questions to see what your relationship with technology looks like at home and which tools could be tailor-fit for your needs. After starting your own experience with the above-mentioned tools, you’ll be given suggestions to additional tips and tools to help you achieve your best version of digital wellbeing. For me, it was fun to see what tools I could implement to make my life a little better, tech-wise.
One of the first tips I received was to set working from home boundaries. To step away from work when you want to. This is huge for me. As I work-from-home as a freelance writer, blogger, and influencer, which makes it hard to walk away from social media as its so intricate to my career existence. But one of Google’s digital wellbeing’s best tools includes scheduled Do Not Disturb timers that can turn on automatically at certain times, creating digital personal, and professional, boundaries for me to use at home to minimize work time distraction.
Best of all, Google will show you how to use it. You can also set an auto-reply for your Gmail account when you are on vacation. Or just need a personal 6-hour staycation nap weekdays at home.
Setting Limits
This is a huge, friends! Especially for parents, grandparents, and educators of tween and teens. You know, the demographic that needs healthy limits and boundaries enforced by the adults who care about them the most. Even adults who sometimes need take a break reminder. Google has made it truly simple to set time limits and remind you and suggest to take a break from media take a break. We all know how easy it is to just keep scrolling feeds online. And this service can help. Google’s Family Link also allows you to set bedtime hour limits so you won’t use your devices after those times. You can even remotely lock a device like your teen’s laptop or tablet, enforcing screentime with or without you needing to be home to enforce this rule.
For families with children, especially for households looking to strike better balances between technology, education, and excessive screentime sessions, wellbeing.google has tools, both a family guide and video content, that allow parents to help manage app usage, lock devices, and set screen time limits. There’s also the self-reflection tool, designed to improve our personal relationship with technology. Perfect for influencers like me.
Then there are apps. For times when the kiddos are spending a little too much time in certain apps Google’s Family Link can help with this predicament as well. Parents can also hide those apps so their child can’t access it. Remotely and at home. While this doesn’t delete the app, nor force users to lose their high scores or in-game progress, it does make the app inaccessible until parents remove or adjust limits for each app. Something we like to do is to give extra app and screen time as an earned reward. It puts a value on app usage. And who doesn’t love earning extra me time each week?
Steps I use at home to maintain my digital wellbeing include:
- No phones or tablets on the dinner table.
- No use of phones or tablets after ten p.m. daily.
- No answering emails past eight p.m. or before 8 a.m. daily.
- No scrolling through devices while connecting with loved ones during calls.
- Replacing two-screen hours a week with audiobook listening sessions.
- No devices after 8 pm weekends.
Google’s #DigitalWellbeing Plan
As the wife of a tech teacher and robotics coach, I have first-hand knowledge of the necessity to keep your family and school-aged children safe online. Particularly as children grow. Which is why I was excited to learn about Google’s Digital Wellbeing Family Guide. Packed with suggestions and tips to keep school-aged children safer online. I think every adult should print out and utilize the Family Guide poster with their families, co-ops, Sunday schools, media centers, and classrooms, too! My husband and I have started to fill out our own and my husband has done so for use in his tech classes at school. As its truly a great thing to way to set online rules at the start of each school year.
There’s also the area of needed to make parenting in the technological age a tad easier. Our lives are hectic and it’s nice to have a resource to help us manage the things we are already using. In better and more effective ways. Including difficult topics like internet safety and cyberbullying. Which are additional ways the initiative can help you to create a family digital wellbeing plan for yourself at home?
And because we all need to unplug more often and practice self-care, be sure to check out the above-mentioned self-reflection tool from wellness.google to improve your own relationship with technology too! Friends, what does your current experience with technology look like? Are you thinking of trying out Google’s #digitalwellbeing Initiative tools yourself? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.