2024年12月——弥迦的屏幕时间「免疫训练」第一阶段

人物：弥迦·王，11岁

随着弥迦年龄渐长，我们希望确保他能自主管理iPad和其他屏幕设备的使用时间。这非常重要，因为他上中学后就需要使用智能手机，我们必须确保他接受过正确使用的训练。弥迦从3-4岁就开始接触电子设备，而且我们之前讨论过成瘾问题，所以他明白什么是上瘾。弥迦也理解我们是在帮助他进行训练，而不是要惩罚他或故意刁难他。此外，他曾经有过未经允许深夜使用iPad，并对使用时间撒谎的经历，这些我们都已处理过。因此弥迦很清楚自己在这方面的软弱和罪性。

这个训练过程大约8个月前开始。首先，我们让他掌握所有设备（笔记本电脑、iPad等）的密码和访问权限。我们告诉他只能在获得许可的情况下使用，目前限制是每周仅周末使用2小时。我们还明确表示，包括他哥哥们在内的任何家庭成员都可以检查他的使用情况并进行监督。

大约2个月后，弥迦被发现使用屏幕时间超过了规定的2小时。我们决定禁止他使用所有设备1个月。弥迦对此非常不满，在房间里待了好几个小时才接受这个惩罚。根据我们的经验，1个月是个合适的期限，因为大约1个月后，弥迦就不再提起屏幕设备，不再询问何时能使用或抱怨这件事，这意味着他已经度过了成瘾的戒断期。之后，我们恢复了他使用设备的权限。

不幸的是，不到1个月，弥迦再次被发现超时使用屏幕。这次我们决定（在弥迦同意的情况下）再次禁止他使用所有设备1个月。此外，之后他将不再拥有任何设备的密码权限，每次使用都需要他人帮忙解锁。这对弥迦来说很难接受，因为这意味着他每次想和朋友聊天、查看或发送信息都需要特别许可。甚至每次想在iPad上看书也需要别人帮忙解锁。有个令人欣慰的情况是，他在iPad上阅读时其实可以玩游戏，我们特别讨论过这一点，弥迦承诺不会辜负这份信任。根据我们检查iPad使用记录的情况，他在这方面确实做得不错。

另一个问题是，当我们解锁设备让他使用屏幕时间时，我们希望他自己计时并在时间到点时停止。这被证明很有挑战性，因为弥迦会试图在时间上钻空子。比如，他通常会把周末的屏幕时间分成几个时段：可能先玩1小时iPad游戏，再玩1小时电脑版《我的世界》。他会找各种理由要求额外时间，比如"连接《我的世界》服务器花了1分钟，所以应该补我1分钟"，或者"我要上厕所大便，这期间没用屏幕，所以应该多给我5分钟"。这种情况让人很沮丧，也很难精确计时，通过这种方式弥迦通常能额外获得5-15分钟的使用时间。

最后我意识到这样下去不行，我们陷入了无解的困境。如果连每分钟的使用时间都要争论，我和他的关系就会破裂。我告诉弥迦，计时开始后，不管中间发生什么，30分钟或1小时到了就必须停止。有一段时间他做得不错，我会在他自己计时的同时偷偷计时，如果误差在几分钟内我就会放过。但2024年11月的某次，我发现他超时了15分钟。我去找他谈话，让他停止游戏，并解释他超时了。弥迦没有道歉或承认超时，反而辩解说有3分钟不算，因为他哥哥打扰了他所以又有5分钟不算...等等。于是我告诉弥迦，他将被无限期禁止使用所有设备，我也不知道何时会恢复他的使用权。作为额外惩罚，我们还收走了他所有的毛绒玩具。弥迦花了至少两天时间才接受这个惩罚。

接下来的两周，弥迦不断来问我什么时候能恢复使用权。"无限期禁止"这个概念真的让他很难受。他说可以是很长时间，但只想知道具体什么时候。我告诉他，他问得越多，这个禁令就会持续得越久。我们又讨论了一次成瘾问题。我向他解释成瘾者会经历戒断过程。弥迦问，怎么知道一个人不再上瘾了？我告诉他，当一个人不再整天想着要吸毒，不再想着吸毒这件事时，就是不再上瘾的标志。我们还讨论了"排毒"的含义，说明弥迦现在正在进行屏幕排毒。

虽然弥迦经常抱怨排毒期间很无聊，但我们注意到他生活中出现了许多积极的变化。首先，他开始考虑即将到来的棒球赛季，主动要求上投球训练课。其次，他说想早点睡觉，并确实开始这样做。他还开始摄入更多蛋白质，尤其是早餐时。这些都是他自发的行为，有时自己煮鸡蛋，有时让我们帮他煮。这是为了能真正专注于长高打棒球。弥迦还主动决定停用iPad看漫画一周，以便集中精力学习SSAT（这是他为进入一所基督教私立学校必须参加的考试）。确实，他这一周都在专注学习SSAT。

目前我们仍处于无限期禁止的阶段。未来某个时候我会恢复他的屏幕使用时间。很可能这个过程还需要多次反复，我们会进行尽可能多的尝试，直到他能够真正自我调节屏幕使用时间。

18. 12/2024 – Micah screen time inoculation training 1

Who – Micah Wang, 11 years old

What – Now that Micah is a bit older, we want to make sure he can manage his usage of iPad, screen time on his own. This is really important since we know that he will need a smart phone when he gets to high school, and we want to make sure he is trained to use it properly. Micah already has had screen time since he was 3-4 years old, and he understands what addiction is since we have talked about it before. Micah also understands that we are training him to help him. This is not to punish him, to be mean to him. In addition, he has already gone through using the ipad, late at night, without permission, and then lying to us about his usage, which we had to address. So Micah understands his own depravity and sinful nature in this area. This training process started about 8 months ago. First, we let him have password, passcode access to all the devices (laptop, iPad … etc). We tell him that he can only use it under permission, and the current limit is 2 hours a week, only on the weekend. We also set the expectations that anyone in the family, including his brothers, can check up on his usage and monitor him. About 2 months into this, Micah was caught using screens beyond his 2 hours. We decided that he will be locked out of all of his devices for 1 month. Micah was extremely unhappy about this and it took him several hours in his room to get over this consequence. 1 month is a good period based on our experience since after about a month, Micah does not mention screens, asking when, moaning about it, this mean he is over his withdrawal symptom from his addiction. After this, we let him back into his devices. Unfortunately, within 1 month, he was caught again using screens beyond his 2 hours. This time, we decided (with Micah’s agreement) that he will be locked out of all of his devices for 1 month. In addition, after that, he no longer has any access to passcodes, passwords to any of his devices. He will need to ask someone else to unlock device for him, every single time. This was really difficult to Micah to take in since it means that anytime he wants to talk to his friends, check a chat, send a chat, he will need specific permission. Also, every time he wants to read a book on iPad, he also needs someone to unlock the iPad for him. One thing that was encouraging was that when he reads on iPad, it is possible for him to play iPad games. We specifically talked about this and Micah promised that he will not violate that trust. So far, he has been good about that based on our checking of iPad history. Another aspect of this is when we unlock a device for him to use screen time, we want him to track his own time and stop when the time is up. This has proving to be challenging because Micah would try to game the clock. For example, Micah usually breaks up his screen time into different sessions per weekend. For example, he may play an iPad game for 1 hour. Then, he will play Minecraft on the computer for another hour. He tried gaming the clock by saying things like, oh, I was waiting for the Minecraft server to be connected, it took 1 minute to do so I get an extra minute. Or, I had to use the restroom to go poop so I get an extra 5 minutes of playing time since I didn’t use the screen while I was in the restroom. It became quite frustrating and difficult to track exact timing and of course through this method Micah was able to get extra 5, perhaps 15 minutes of screen time. Finally, enough is enough, I know that we are in a no-win situation. If we have to argue what counts as screen time minute by minute, my relationship will go bankrupt with him. I told Micah no more, when he starts the timer, it does not matter what happens in between, he is done after 30 minutes, or hour, whatever tracking he is doing. For a while, he was doing well. I would secretly time him while he times himself. If it is within a few minutes, I would let it go. However, sometime in Nov 2024, I was secretly timing him, and he was over by 15 minutes. I went to talk to him, ask him to stop playing, and try to explain to him that he went over by 15 minutes. Instead of saying he was sorry, admitting that he went over, Micah proceeded to argue that 3 minutes didn’t count because of this, and then his brothers were interrupting him so another 5 minutes didn’t count … etc. I proceeded to tell Micah that he had an indefinite ban to all of his devices. I don’t know when I will grant his access back. We also took away all of his stuffed animals as additional consequence. This took Micah at least two days to get over. In the next two weeks, Micah kept coming back to me asking when he can get his access back. The idea of indefinite ban really got to him. He says it can be a long time but he just wants to know when. I told him that the more he asks me, the longer I will make it indefinite. We again discussed addiction. I explained to him addicts go through withdrawal. Micah asked, how do we know if someone is no longer addicted. I told him that when a person stop asking for drugs all the time, not thinking about doing drugs, that is a sign towards not getting addicted. We also went through the meaning of the detox. That basically, Micah is going through a screen detox at the moment. Although Micah often complains how bored he is during this detox period, we noticed quite a few amazing changes in his life. First, he started to think about his up and coming baseball season. He asked me to get him pitching lessons. Next, he said that he wanted to sleep a lot earlier, which he started doing. He also started eating way more protein in general, especially during breakfast. This is all on his own. He will either make his owns boiled eggs or asked us to make it for him. This is so that he can really focus on growing taller for Baseball. Micah also decided, on his own, that he would detox from reading comic books on the iPad for one week so that he can focus on studying the SSAT, which was a test that he had to take to get in a Christian private school. Sure enough, he did detox and spent more time studying the SSAT for one week. We are still in the indefinite ban period. At some point, I will give screen time back to him. Most likely, this process will still take more iterations, and we will take as many iterations as possible until he can properly self-regulate his screen intake.