Sunday 26th June is National Unplugging Day, the UK’s largest digital detox movement. The campaign encourages parents around the UK to pledge to go gadget-free.
That means, we think, that they pledge to try to get their children to go gadget-free. The idea is strongly supported by the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship (SWSF) which warns against excessive use of technology, particularly in early years classrooms. Kevin Avison, executive officer at SWSF, explains:
“As Steiner educators we understand that young children need time to find their feet in their immediate world, to explore though active play, learn to interact with other people & develop basic life-skills; so we introduce ‘soft technology’ such as weaving, sewing, cooking and building dens rather than offering hi-tech devices that can wait until later.
Children need to develop the wisdom to manipulate these devices when they come to use them, to understand how they work and therefore to make them work for them, rather than interfacing in a passive way. National Unplugging Day is an opportunity to curb our own addiction by turning off all electronic devices, in order to both appreciate the amount of time we spend using them and re-connect with the world around us.”