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By Jennifer Iamele Savage
“Breaking up with your phone means giving yourself the space, freedom, and tools necessary to create a new, long-term relationship with it, one that keeps what you love about your phone and gets rid of what you don’t.” Catherine Price, How to Break Up with Your Phone, Revised Edition: The 30-Day Digital Detox Plan
Over the past month I have been exploring the concept of screentime stewardship as a social change initiative, and the journey has been eye-opening. Like most of us, I have had a complicated relationship with screens throughout the years. As a member of Generation Y, I remember a time without the internet, technology, screens, and the like, and yet at this moment, I cannot imagine them not being a part of our daily lives. I have ridden all the waves of technology including getting excited about the potential and possibility of these advancements to getting disgusted by the statistics of the time being wasted and those who profit from our distractions. I have quit social media for extended periods of time and done digital detoxes. My mindset was always “disconnect to reconnect”. In recent years, however, I feel like completely disconnecting is no longer an option–and with the growing popularity of AI and other technological advances, that option will only become less available, in my opinion. Therefore, I am turning my attention to a different way of interacting with technology which I refer to as Screen Time Stewardship.
What is Screen Time Stewardship?
“Screen time stewardship” is a thoughtful, values-based approach to managing digital device use—especially in homes, schools, and communities. Rather than simply limiting screen time, stewardship emphasizes intentionality, balance, and responsibility in how we engage with screens.
It’s about asking:
- What purpose does this screen time serve?
- Is it enriching, connecting, or numbing?
- How does it align with our values, goals, and well-being?
- How does cultivating this practice apply to other technologies as well?
In practice, screen time stewardship might look like:
- Co-creating family or classroom media plans that prioritize quality over quantity.
- Modeling mindful tech use—pausing to reflect before picking up a device.
- Encouraging digital citizenship and critical thinking about online content.
- Making space for offline experiences that nurture creativity, movement, and connection.
How do I Build my own Capacity for Screen time Stewardship?
As part of this exploration, I have been running a screen time stewardship pilot program and have heard feedback from participants such as “it [technology use] feels like a familiar pattern with clear signals: craving, dopamine hit, let down, renewed craving” and “I would like to model responsible phone behavior and use my phone as a tool not as a mindless addiction”. Participants reflect on their screen time use and set goals regarding what they hope to get out of the study. Based on participant feedback and personal reflection, I have identified a pathway with practical steps for cultivating digital stewardship.
Awareness
Audit your current screen time use. Reflect and notice when you use your devices and what needs you are trying to fill. Consider your goals. Become conscious of the statistics and their implications for yourself and those you care about. Consider the things that you do not have time to do that you want to spend more time doing.
Staggering Statistics:
U.S. adults spend an average of 7 hours and 3 minutes per day on internet-connected devices. (Backlinko, 2025)
47.5% of children aged 2–5 exceed 2 hours of recreational screen time on weekdays; this jumps to 65.5%for ages 6–11. (CDC, 2020)
50.4% of teens aged 12–17 report 4+ hours of daily screen time, excluding schoolwork. (NHIS–Teen, 2024)
Action
After you audit the time that you spend online, consider how you could reduce the wasted time and replace that time with things that you want to prioritize.In reducing your time, try different actions (adapted from Catherine Price’s 30 Day Break Up Plan) that could help you break your addiction and make those mindful changes.
Accountability
Find an accountability tool or person to support you in your goals. Maybe it’s setting screen time limits. Maybe it’s joining an accountability group or finding an accountability partner to check in with regarding your screen time usage.
Engage Family
Part of Screen Time Stewardship involves acting as a role model for your families and/or future generations. Try building your own family commitments based off of Andy Crouch’s work in Tech-Wise Family. Build a family contract. Play Family Wellness Bingo.
Application to Other Technologies
Stewardship doesn’t stop at screens: it extends to emerging technologies like AI, which are rapidly changing our lives before our eyes. At this moment I am inviting people to consider how they want to interact with AI. I recently read an article that said “You’re not going to lose your job to an A.I., but you’re going to lose your job to someone who uses A.I.” Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia and that truly encapsulated the mindset that I believe we need to adopt. AI is here to stay so we need to apply some of the same principles that we are applying to other technologies and screens to AI. We must find a way to stay in integrity with our intellectual capital while utilizing this technology and maintaining an awareness of the environmental implications–which are all parts of stewardship. Stewardship also includes understanding the unseen costs of technology use, specifically its environmental footprint.
A single ChatGPT request uses about 10 times more electricity than a standard Google search.
Data centers powering AI models consumed 4.4% of all U.S. electricity in 2023, and that figure is projected to rise to 6.7–12% by 2028.
Some AI prompts can generate up to 50 times more CO₂ emissions than others, depending on complexity and model size. (Shan, 2025).
Consider Power Dynamics Behind the Screen
Part of this is in the awareness category and yet I believe that this deserves its own space for big picture, structural consideration. There are cultural currents shaping our attention and part of being a good steward is taking the intentional time that is necessary to understand if being complicit in these systems is serving us and our society.
For example, Bo Burnham, an American comedian, musician, filmmaker, and former YouTube sensation, has been outspoken about the psychological toll of social media, describing it as a form of “attention colonization.” In interviews and panels, he’s warned that tech companies are no longer just selling products—they’re “coming for every second of your life,” monetizing human attention and shaping behavior through algorithmic design.
More Perfect Union,an Emmy-winning nonprofit media organization focused on building power for the working class, blends investigative journalism with advocacy, spotlighting corporate abuses and amplifying the voices of everyday Americans. While on a recent road trip, I saw some of their billboards, got interested, and did some research. Recently, the group launched a billboard campaign targeting Big Tech, calling out companies like Meta and TikTok for exploiting user attention and contributing to mental health crises. These billboards are part of a broader push to hold tech giants accountable for their role in digital overconsumption, especially among youth.
What Other Resources are Available to Support this Social Change?
There are resources and movements like The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, the Screenagers documentary series, and campaigns like Wait Til 8th that advocate for limiting screen use for children and teenagers. In Tech Wise Parenting by Andy and Amy Crouch, the authors offer 10 tech-wise commitments and Catherine Price in How to Break Up with Your Phone offers a 30 day break up plan. All of these resources can be invaluable in creating your own screen time stewardship plan. However, the key to creating this successful balance and personalized pathway depends on the individual and is ultimately a personalized journey. In my work I have created a visual companion to assist myself and others who are on this quest to a more intentional relationship with current and emerging technologies that can be found below.
Conclusion
Regardless of the tools that you use to get there, Screen Time Stewardship is a social change effort that I believe should be on our minds and hearts before it is too late. There is no right way to do this and vilifying technology is not the goal–cultivating a responsible and intentional relationship and finding the balance and harmony that exists at the center of this movement is instead what I believe will sustain us in the future. Screens are not going away and if anything, there will be increasing opportunities to engage with them sooner than we may even realize, so the question is not if we want to engage with digital platforms but instead how–and I believe that if we do not set these parameters others who do not have our best interests at heart will.
References
Backlinko Team. (2025, January 30). Revealing average screen time statistics for 2025. https://backlinko.com/screen-time-statistics
Huang, J. (2025, May 28). You’re not going to lose your job to an A.I., but you’re going to lose your job to someone who uses A.I. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/28/nvidia-ceo-jensen-huang-youll-lose-your-job-to-somebody-who-uses-ai.html
Mic. (2022, November 10). Bo Burnham warned us about social media, now everyone is listening. https://www.mic.com/life/bo-burnham-social-media-twitter-elon-musk
Shah, S. (2025, June 18). The climate impact of different AI prompts. Time. https://time.com/7295844/climate-emissions-impact-ai-prompts/
Yahoo News. (2025, July 15). Big Tech billionaire backlash protest puts 50 billboards in Augusta and beyond. https://www.yahoo.com/news/big-tech-billionaire-backlash-protest-154155511.html
Zablotsky, B., Arockiaraj, B., Haile, G., & Ng, A. E. (2024, October). Daily screen time among teenagers: United States, July 2021–December 2023 (NCHS Data Brief No. 513). National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db513.htm
Biography
Jen Iamele Savage is a writer, educator, and empowerment coach whose work bridges the worlds of teaching, motherhood, and personal transformation. Her path has been shaped by a deep commitment to authentic living and a calling to help others—particularly women and mothers—reclaim their voice, worth, and purpose.
Jen began her professional journey as a high school English teacher, has worked in a variety of educational capacities, and is currently pursuing a doctorate in Montessori studies, deepening her commitment to whole-child, whole-person education. Her classroom has always been more than a place of academic learning; it’s where she nurtures reflection, voice, and connection. Drawing from her Montessori foundation and trauma-informed teaching background, she approaches education with compassion and curiosity, encouraging students to ask big questions about identity, purpose, and the world around them.
Jen’s writing, featured on platforms like Her View From Home. Motherly, and Charleston Moms, explores motherhood with both tenderness and fierce honesty. In her books—The Language of Mom Rage: From Injustice to Transformation and The Language of Transformation—she unpacks the emotional undercurrents of modern womanhood, offering readers language and frameworks to make sense of their inner experiences.
Whether she’s speaking to fellow educators about supporting the whole child or guiding a group of mothers through personal transformation, Jen’s work is rooted in a single truth: our hardest moments can become our greatest invitations. Her story is one of surrender, reclamation, and the radical idea that healing can start right where we are—in the classroom, in the kitchen, in the middle of a tantrum or a heartbreak.
Now living in Charleston, South Carolina, Jen is raising two children, continuing to teach, write, and lead with integrity and intention. Through every role she inhabits, she models what it means to be a mindful, purposeful woman in a world that often demands we disconnect from our inner voice.
“Breaking up with your phone means giving yourself the space, freedom, and tools necessary to create a new, long-term relationship with it, one that keeps what you love about your phone and gets rid of what you don’t.” Catherine Price, How to Break Up with Your Phone, Revised Edition: The 30-Day Digital Detox Plan
Over the past month I have been exploring the concept of screentime stewardship as a social change initiative, and the journey has been eye-opening. Like most of us, I have had a complicated relationship with screens throughout the years. As a member of Generation Y, I remember a time without the internet, technology, screens, and the like, and yet at this moment, I cannot imagine them not being a part of our daily lives. I have ridden all the waves of technology including getting excited about the potential and possibility of these advancements to getting disgusted by the statistics of the time being wasted and those who profit from our distractions. I have quit social media for extended periods of time and done digital detoxes. My mindset was always “disconnect to reconnect”. In recent years, however, I feel like completely disconnecting is no longer an option–and with the growing popularity of AI and other technological advances, that option will only become less available, in my opinion. Therefore, I am turning my attention to a different way of interacting with technology which I refer to as Screen Time Stewardship.
What is Screen Time Stewardship?
“Screen time stewardship” is a thoughtful, values-based approach to managing digital device use—especially in homes, schools, and communities. Rather than simply limiting screen time, stewardship emphasizes intentionality, balance, and responsibility in how we engage with screens.
It’s about asking:
- What purpose does this screen time serve?
- Is it enriching, connecting, or numbing?
- How does it align with our values, goals, and well-being?
- How does cultivating this practice apply to other technologies as well?
In practice, screen time stewardship might look like:
- Co-creating family or classroom media plans that prioritize quality over quantity.
- Modeling mindful tech use—pausing to reflect before picking up a device.
- Encouraging digital citizenship and critical thinking about online content.
- Making space for offline experiences that nurture creativity, movement, and connection.
How do I Build my own Capacity for Screen time Stewardship?
As part of this exploration, I have been running a screen time stewardship pilot program and have heard feedback from participants such as “it [technology use] feels like a familiar pattern with clear signals: craving, dopamine hit, let down, renewed craving” and “I would like to model responsible phone behavior and use my phone as a tool not as a mindless addiction”. Participants reflect on their screen time use and set goals regarding what they hope to get out of the study. Based on participant feedback and personal reflection, I have identified a pathway with practical steps for cultivating digital stewardship.
Awareness
Audit your current screen time use. Reflect and notice when you use your devices and what needs you are trying to fill. Consider your goals. Become conscious of the statistics and their implications for yourself and those you care about. Consider the things that you do not have time to do that you want to spend more time doing.
Staggering Statistics:
U.S. adults spend an average of 7 hours and 3 minutes per day on internet-connected devices. (Backlinko, 2025)
47.5% of children aged 2–5 exceed 2 hours of recreational screen time on weekdays; this jumps to 65.5%for ages 6–11. (CDC, 2020)
50.4% of teens aged 12–17 report 4+ hours of daily screen time, excluding schoolwork. (NHIS–Teen, 2024)
Action
After you audit the time that you spend online, consider how you could reduce the wasted time and replace that time with things that you want to prioritize.In reducing your time, try different actions (adapted from Catherine Price’s 30 Day Break Up Plan) that could help you break your addiction and make those mindful changes.
Accountability
Find an accountability tool or person to support you in your goals. Maybe it’s setting screen time limits. Maybe it’s joining an accountability group or finding an accountability partner to check in with regarding your screen time usage.
Engage Family
Part of Screen Time Stewardship involves acting as a role model for your families and/or future generations. Try building your own family commitments based off of Andy Crouch’s work in Tech-Wise Family. Build a family contract. Play Family Wellness Bingo.
Application to Other Technologies
Stewardship doesn’t stop at screens: it extends to emerging technologies like AI, which are rapidly changing our lives before our eyes. At this moment I am inviting people to consider how they want to interact with AI. I recently read an article that said “You’re not going to lose your job to an A.I., but you’re going to lose your job to someone who uses A.I.” Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia and that truly encapsulated the mindset that I believe we need to adopt. AI is here to stay so we need to apply some of the same principles that we are applying to other technologies and screens to AI. We must find a way to stay in integrity with our intellectual capital while utilizing this technology and maintaining an awareness of the environmental implications–which are all parts of stewardship. Stewardship also includes understanding the unseen costs of technology use, specifically its environmental footprint.
A single ChatGPT request uses about 10 times more electricity than a standard Google search.
Data centers powering AI models consumed 4.4% of all U.S. electricity in 2023, and that figure is projected to rise to 6.7–12% by 2028.
Some AI prompts can generate up to 50 times more CO₂ emissions than others, depending on complexity and model size. (Shan, 2025).
Consider Power Dynamics Behind the Screen
Part of this is in the awareness category and yet I believe that this deserves its own space for big picture, structural consideration. There are cultural currents shaping our attention and part of being a good steward is taking the intentional time that is necessary to understand if being complicit in these systems is serving us and our society.
For example, Bo Burnham, an American comedian, musician, filmmaker, and former YouTube sensation, has been outspoken about the psychological toll of social media, describing it as a form of “attention colonization.” In interviews and panels, he’s warned that tech companies are no longer just selling products—they’re “coming for every second of your life,” monetizing human attention and shaping behavior through algorithmic design.
More Perfect Union,an Emmy-winning nonprofit media organization focused on building power for the working class, blends investigative journalism with advocacy, spotlighting corporate abuses and amplifying the voices of everyday Americans. While on a recent road trip, I saw some of their billboards, got interested, and did some research. Recently, the group launched a billboard campaign targeting Big Tech, calling out companies like Meta and TikTok for exploiting user attention and contributing to mental health crises. These billboards are part of a broader push to hold tech giants accountable for their role in digital overconsumption, especially among youth.
What Other Resources are Available to Support this Social Change?
There are resources and movements like The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, the Screenagers documentary series, and campaigns like Wait Til 8th that advocate for limiting screen use for children and teenagers. In Tech Wise Parenting by Andy and Amy Crouch, the authors offer 10 tech-wise commitments and Catherine Price in How to Break Up with Your Phone offers a 30 day break up plan. All of these resources can be invaluable in creating your own screen time stewardship plan. However, the key to creating this successful balance and personalized pathway depends on the individual and is ultimately a personalized journey. In my work I have created a visual companion to assist myself and others who are on this quest to a more intentional relationship with current and emerging technologies that can be found below.
Conclusion
Regardless of the tools that you use to get there, Screen Time Stewardship is a social change effort that I believe should be on our minds and hearts before it is too late. There is no right way to do this and vilifying technology is not the goal–cultivating a responsible and intentional relationship and finding the balance and harmony that exists at the center of this movement is instead what I believe will sustain us in the future. Screens are not going away and if anything, there will be increasing opportunities to engage with them sooner than we may even realize, so the question is not if we want to engage with digital platforms but instead how–and I believe that if we do not set these parameters others who do not have our best interests at heart will.
References
Backlinko Team. (2025, January 30). Revealing average screen time statistics for 2025. https://backlinko.com/screen-time-statistics
Huang, J. (2025, May 28). You’re not going to lose your job to an A.I., but you’re going to lose your job to someone who uses A.I. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/28/nvidia-ceo-jensen-huang-youll-lose-your-job-to-somebody-who-uses-ai.html
Mic. (2022, November 10). Bo Burnham warned us about social media, now everyone is listening. https://www.mic.com/life/bo-burnham-social-media-twitter-elon-musk
Shah, S. (2025, June 18). The climate impact of different AI prompts. Time. https://time.com/7295844/climate-emissions-impact-ai-prompts/
Yahoo News. (2025, July 15). Big Tech billionaire backlash protest puts 50 billboards in Augusta and beyond. https://www.yahoo.com/news/big-tech-billionaire-backlash-protest-154155511.html
Zablotsky, B., Arockiaraj, B., Haile, G., & Ng, A. E. (2024, October). Daily screen time among teenagers: United States, July 2021–December 2023 (NCHS Data Brief No. 513). National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db513.htm
Biography
Jen Iamele Savage is a writer, educator, and empowerment coach whose work bridges the worlds of teaching, motherhood, and personal transformation. Her path has been shaped by a deep commitment to authentic living and a calling to help others—particularly women and mothers—reclaim their voice, worth, and purpose.
Jen began her professional journey as a high school English teacher, has worked in a variety of educational capacities, and is currently pursuing a doctorate in Montessori studies, deepening her commitment to whole-child, whole-person education. Her classroom has always been more than a place of academic learning; it’s where she nurtures reflection, voice, and connection. Drawing from her Montessori foundation and trauma-informed teaching background, she approaches education with compassion and curiosity, encouraging students to ask big questions about identity, purpose, and the world around them.
Jen’s writing, featured on platforms like Her View From Home. Motherly, and Charleston Moms, explores motherhood with both tenderness and fierce honesty. In her books—The Language of Mom Rage: From Injustice to Transformation and The Language of Transformation—she unpacks the emotional undercurrents of modern womanhood, offering readers language and frameworks to make sense of their inner experiences.
Whether she’s speaking to fellow educators about supporting the whole child or guiding a group of mothers through personal transformation, Jen’s work is rooted in a single truth: our hardest moments can become our greatest invitations. Her story is one of surrender, reclamation, and the radical idea that healing can start right where we are—in the classroom, in the kitchen, in the middle of a tantrum or a heartbreak.
Now living in Charleston, South Carolina, Jen is raising two children, continuing to teach, write, and lead with integrity and intention. Through every role she inhabits, she models what it means to be a mindful, purposeful woman in a world that often demands we disconnect from our inner voice.
