An empty stage with a microphone. One spotlight.

Photo by Matthias Wagner on Unsplash

That’s what it feels like to when you “turn on” your website. There is stomach-churning silence. Instinct says you should run. But unfortunately, you can’t. The journey to this stage was like trudging through knee-deep mud, holding a perfect cake on a pristine plate on top of your head.

I finally did it. It’s ON.

Thank you for stopping by… Stay a while. 😊

This screentime mission is the culmination of the three disparate parts of my life as a game maker, business-builder, and stay at home mom. Those of you who know me from my time at Electronic Arts (please don’t leave without saying hello 👋 below!) will remember my single minded drive to support the creative development in organising EVERYTHING. From the concept to completion, I loved the PROCESS of making games. I loved designing and forming the teams, figuring out the creative gates and checkpoints, and then driving that baby home over the finishing line. The game itself was important, but it was not as thrilling to me as the process. When I tell people this, they are surprised.

Wasn’t it exciting working on the the Lord of the Rings? What was it like to work on THE SIMS?

The truth is, it was easy to thoughtfully reflect on the experience because the games were final and released. Those games are done. When I became a mom, somehow I forgot the process and focused too much on the result. And what’s crazy is that I thought I was “finaling” at each stage of childhood. When I read an article about sleep training, I turned it into a checklist of things that I needed to accomplish to make the “perfect sleeping baby.” (News Alert: A perfect sleeping baby is a UNICORN!) The baby always has another plan… and so does the toddler, kid, tween, and WTF with the teenager? And ironically, when it came to screentime and technology, I struggled deeply with my own personal blindspot of being an “expert.” As my family multiplied to three kiddos crossing multiple continents and with my pregnancy pause stalled, I realised I wasn’t alone in my obstacles. This technology is new!

Are you trying to figure it out too?

In church mom groups (don’t leave without saying hello too!), PTAs, GNOs, and private moments with spouses, there is a growing concern about how to deal with screentime. Through the years, friends and family have ask me to share my perspective and opinions. Sometimes as the only semi-technical mom amongst my peers, I helped fellow parents set up monitoring services (with mentoring!), recommended so many apps, and coached game playing. (I’ll never get my skills back! 😭) We’ve talked about cyberbullying, violence in media, game addiction, sexting, and porn. The issues mount, and the concerns grow.

And what’s interesting is that parents are freaking out, but kids seem totally cool.

Eventually, I  figured out that setting up the right habits around screentime for our kids is a PROCESS, not a checklist. The old adage of “rules without reason, leads to rebellion,” applies to screentime too!

We need to help kids build a healthy relationship with their screens because it is an integral part of their lives and livelihood.

Infinite Screentime is an important point of view in this dialogue around technology. You need to hear it, so don’t leave without dropping me a line.

Now that we are live, I want to thank fellow momma Jen Ritchie of Sonowwhat.studio for guiding me along this path. When I first met Jen nearly one year ago, I arrived on the scene with a hand drawn wire frame of my grand website. She looked at the mockups and said, “Uh, Arcadia, websites haven’t looked like that like since the early 2000s.” This slick millennially flavoured manifesto is partly Jen’s. She gave me the courage to integrate my personality more into the Infinite brand, which continues to be… TERRIFYING. Our thirty minute sync-ups would turn into two hour powwows sharing her screentime battle ground with her gorgeous four year old son in this technology age. As we worked together, we both knew that many more parents needed to get in on our conversations! It hasn’t been easy labouring over this baby, but I couldn’t have done it without you, Jen! 🙏

So, here it is… Finally!

www.infinitescreentime.com

I’ve got many acts on this empty stage left in me, so I’m so grateful for your support. And we’ve only just begun. Let me know what you would like to see!!!