ScreenSense

03/24/2026

What a day!




damour

Plus a chance to connect in person with our local leads from Marin and San Francisco, Tiffany from , and a few other clinicians from .sf
What a seriously amazing group of women.

Common Sense Media Summit
San Francisco
March 23-24

12/04/2025

We LOVE coming to talk with parents and school communities about ways to slow down tech. Our goal is always to educate AND empower parents and caregivers to make the choices they know are better for their kids.

Thank you to for the support and for our Bacich and Kent Kids IRL School Ambassadors for organizing this great event!

Interested in bringing our parent ed to your school, leave a comment Virtual or In Person and we’ll send you some information!

10/19/2025

Last Thursday, we attended the very first Bay Area screening of “Can’t Look Away.” Heartbreaking and infuriating, its message can’t be denied: we need to ALL wake up to the harms of social media on our youth and get to work.

Thank you Amy Neville (), Laura Marquez-Garrett () and Arturo Béjar () for being part of the panel afterwards and bringing your stories, heartache, passion and dedication to caring for today’s youth.

Thank you for your vision for this event. Thank you and for making the film a reality.

Schools and communities can host a screening of the documentary as a way to start the crucial conversations needed to change youth social media norms collectively. Interested? Leave a comment or send us a DM.

If you are in Marin County, join our county wide initiative Kids IRL to slow down tech, including delaying access to social media. Link in profile.

09/30/2025

We had a fantastic parent-ed conversation at yesterday!

We love this banner hanging in their office. Curiosity is exactly what we need to embrace parenting and raising children in a digital world.

Thanks for the moms and dads who shared, asked fantastic questions and showed us that we can talk about hard things. And thank you for the donations to support our work!

Our collective action in Marin is brought to life by school ambassadors, like Heidi, who organized the event, engaged school admin and made it happen!

If you are in Marin and would like us to come to your school or youth organization, send us a message or email us at [email protected]

06/12/2025

Families in Marin County! Get your tweens and teens exploring on their own!

They can get to the Marin County Fair, to swimming pools, to camp, to a friend’s house, to the movies, even to San Francisco!

Marin Transit - Youth Ride Free for Summer (June - August 2025)

Marin Transit is offering free rides for youth riders (18 & under) from June to August 31, 2025! Youth aged 5 – 18 can take advantage of this promotion and ride free through the county all summer long.

01/14/2025

Stay connected with ScreenSense in 2025!

If you are in Marin County, join Kids IRL - our growing parent community that is committed to keeping phone and watches simple until high school: https://www.screensense.org/about-kids-irl

Subscribe to our monthly OneStep newsletter:
https://www.screensense.org/subscribe

Follow us Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/_screensense/

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel and check out our curated playlists:
https://www.youtube.com/

The ScreenSense Team & Kids IRL HQ

12/02/2024

Our virtual parent-ed talks cover the latest research and best practices for K-8 parents/caregivers. All topics weave in the recommendations of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and his book Anxious Generation and we address how parents, school and communities can start to work together to change childhood tech norms.

For the 24/25 school year, we are offering the following virtual talks:

1. Is screen time a daily struggle at home?
(For parents grades K-3)

2. Is my child ready for a Smartphone?
(For parents grades 4-6)

3. Is my middle schooler ready for Social Media?
(For parents grades 6-8)

4. Changing Youth Tech Norms Together
(For parents K-8)

See the brief preview of our newest talk "Changing Youth Tech Norms Together".

If you are interested in booking a booking a virtual Parent Ed talk at your school or more a group of parents, please send an email to [email protected]

Our newest virtual Parent Ed topic is "Changing Youth Tech Norms Together". Specifically for parents and caregivers of K-12 students, this talk covers the la...

11/04/2024

Checked out our website lately?

We have free resources for parents to help navigate the many tech transitions and how to do it slowly and in age appropriate ways!

Link to our website in profile!

11/04/2024

It's Apple update time. Time for a Tech Check: If you have Apple ScreenTime controls set up on your kids devices, check them. Apple updates are notorious for adjusting/changing/messing with features which can change or even de-activate your ScreenTime settings. And if your kids Apple devices get iOS updates at different times, you might have to do the Tech Check a few times!

This NEW feature is available only for iOS 18.1 (on all iPhone 16, iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max) , iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1.

I uploaded iOS 18.1 update today to see what Apple Intelligence is all about!

First, I do not have AUTOMATIC UPDATES activated. This gives me time to understand and read about the update before it changes features on my phone! We HIGHLY recommend turning off AUTOMATIC UPDATES especially on devices that kids access. That helps create that pause to understand how the tech has changed and what the watch-outs might be!

Second, Apple Intelligence is NOT automatically on. When the update is complete, you will see APPLE INTELLIGENCE & Siri pop up in your SETTINGS. See Image 4.

Third, Apple Intelligence is still in BETA mode - which means they are working out the kinks! I will let them work out the kinks before I activate the feature! But I went through the first steps to see how this process unfolds!

Fourth, to activate the feature, you click on JOIN THE WAITLIST. And after an hours or so, you will see PREPARING (Image 5) and then TURN ON APPLE INTELLIGENCE (Image 6). Once you click on TURN ON APPLE INTELLIGENCE it takes you to the feature where you can then toggle ON/OFF (Image 7).

For today, the bells and whistles of Apple Intelligence seem to be around Siri, Photos and Writing Tools. I let our 15 year old explain some of the features to me and he describes them as pretty mundane, for now. My take away is that a big part of Apple Intelligence is here to make Siri more "intelligent" - more intuitive, more able to predict your responses, answer your texts based on context and how you've responded before, more able to direct you to the right content you are looking for, etc.

I am glad that for now Apple has this Waitlist feature that suggests that not all users/devices will be able to access the feature - perhaps under age 13 accounts won't be able to access it. And I am glad there are a few steps needed to activate the Apple Intelligence feature and that it isn't automatically activated with this update - that may change with future updates. And I am glad there is a way to toggle the feature on/off - which means this OFF can be selected using Screen Time controls.

Do you have an Apple device that will get the Apple Intelligence update? Have you used the feature? Any thoughts or reactions?

11/02/2024

Stop scrolling and dial a number. Of a friend you haven't talked to in a while. To your sister, to your brother-in-law, to your neighbor. Call to say hi and hello, just because.

We are more connected electronically than ever before but sometimes we forget how just hearing someone's voice makes us feel.

10/31/2024

This book and 's work changed so much and is continuing to impact how we parent and support young people in the digital age! We are grateful for his work and continued commitment to children and youth all over the world!

We are thrilled to be one of the Anxious Generation Allied Organizations - you can learn more about the many other organizations working together towards the same goals here: https://www.anxiousgeneration.com/aligned-orgs

If you haven't read this book, read it.
If you have read it, gift it to someone who hasn't.

10/29/2024

Join this virtual Parent Ed event and get caught up on the latest research and recommendations from the US Surgeon General and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt (author of The Anxious Generation). Leave with actionable steps to slowly roll out tech to your kids in age-appropriate ways. And learn about Kids IRL, Marin's new K-8 movement to collectively help our kids spend their time "more IRL, less URL."

Registration required!
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_et3Oq3qxTB-Hb2PnMq9WqA #/registration