Analogue August : A Family Trial Run Without Screens

Well, it’s happening. We’re doing the unthinkable. Four weeks without a Digital Babysitter. No iPads. No phones. Just us, the kids, and a terrifyingly large stack of Uno cards.

We’ve decided that our family holiday this August is the perfect time to give Analogue April’s Digital Challenges a proper go. Consider it a dry run, but with children and potentially some light weeping (ours, not theirs – although time will tell). Our two boys, aged 7 and 9, are the unsuspecting stars of this experiment. There will be no digital babysitters and their thumbs will soon forget what swiping feels like. Instead, they’ll be building stick forts, chasing butterflies, and asking "what time is it?" every five minutes because… well, the day can be veeerrry long.

Death by Top Trumps

Tim and I are also going to live by the list of Digital Challenges we’ve proposed as a warm up exercise. That means no doomscrolling in the evening, no cheeky scroll while pretending to go to the loo, and no handing the kids a phone when we just want to finish one adult conversation without being interrupted to ask who the oldest person in the world is. Basically, we’re going a bit feral. And weirdly, we’re looking forward to it.

To be fair, we’ll be dodging the "commuter challenge" – we’re not cramming ourselves into the Tube each morning, so that’s a free pass. But everything else? Still fully in play. No screens for entertainment. No Google Maps for directions. We’re even packing real books. Remember those? Heavy things. But no concerns with sand getting on screens.

But just to be clear: this is not about us becoming sanctimonious digital detox warriors. We’re not looking to earn smug points or judge anyone who lets their kids use an iPad while trying to cook dinner with one hand and moderate a work call with the other. This is purely about trying it out for ourselves and seeing what comes up when the crutch is kicked out from under us. Possibly discovering just how many hours there really are in a day when you can’t lose an hour scrolling the comments section on a video of someone cleaning their toaster.

We know it’ll be hard and there will be moments (many) of desperation. There will almost certainly be a public meltdown or two (again, could be us). But maybe, just maybe, we’ll also catch a glimpse of something lovely. Like two boys who stop asking for a screen and start climbing a tree. Or a dinner where we all stay at the table for a whole 15 minutes. Or a sentence completed without interruption. Dare to dream!

Wish us luck. Or better yet – join us. Whether it’s August or April, a weekend or a week – give a little analogue a go. Who knows, we might even emerge with better behaved kids. Or at least ones who stop twitching every time they hear a notification sound.

One can hope. Wish us luck.

Tim, Amelia, Indy and Rocco.