Our Story

Our team came to this topic long before Covid and not as filmmakers, but as parents raising young children between the ages of one and nineteen. Moms and dads at our kids’ schools all ask the same questions: How much Youtube does your kid watch?  Did you let your kid watch “His Dark Materials”? Does your kid have a smartphone? And then Covid hit!

Most of us were relieved to have zoom classrooms and that facsimile of education referred to as, “distance learning.” But children around the world are now emerging even more obsessed with their devices. The science is clear: Heavy use of tech can profoundly compromise healthy “brain development” in young children.

The weird part is that most parents know this already.
It’s been our instinct all along...

We made this film to remind parents of what we already know — instinctively, as parents — children need to experience outdoor play, work with their hands, engage with their friends, and figure out what to do when they become insufferably bored. In making this film, we wanted to explore how we might both protect and prepare our children for a rapidly changing world where turning back the clock is not an option.

While editing the film, everyone wanted us to offer a simple answer; but there were none. Our process was to seek out intimate conversations with parents, teachers, neuroscientists, tech executives, child psychologists, and kids of every age from around the world hoping to better understand what’s become humankind’s greatest social experiment. Is tech somehow inherently evil? Should we shield our children from it at all costs?  Certainly not, nor could we if we tried. Our goal is not to tell you what to do. Rather, we hope this film can help start a conversation that is as important and alive today as climate change.