South Shore Digital Wellness

Our mission is to provide South Shore families with meaningful opportunities to gather, learn, and grow —strengthening connections within our community and building a healthy relationship with the technology we use.

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South Shore Digital Wellness (SSDW) is pleased to announce a new collaboration with Scituate High School (SHS) Health & Wellness Department to bring Screenagers Next Chapter (2024) to the classroom next year.

Building upon the first Screenagers film, a story about youth screen time limits, Next Chapter tells the story of how social media, online pressures, and digital stress are affecting teen mental health, relationships, and sense of self. With solutions focused on mental wellbeing, resilience, and connection, SHS health educators will thoughtfully implement the resource with Scituate students during the 2026-2027 academic year.

Our licensing agreement also permits community screening opportunities to share awareness about digital wellness — stay tuned!

Youth Survey Results on Digital Tech Use

Nearly a third of survey respondents (10 of 32) said that they will make rules more restrictive then those made for them regarding children’s social media and smartphone use.

Thanks to all who helped circulate our youth survey on digital technology use. The results were very interesting and we’ll be reviewing them in two parts, this month and next.

32 teens answered our anonymous survey. Of these, all but one were in high school or college, 23 identified as female and 9 as male, 88% had social media, and 94% had smartphones.

Nearly two-thirds of the social media users reported first getting their accounts at ages 8-12 years-old (below most of the major platforms’ minimum age requirement of 13). The average age for getting a smartphone was 11 (5th/6th grade), and fewer than 10% of smartphone owners had waited until 8th grade.

Household rules for social media and phone use varied greatly — some had no rules from the start, others had screen time limits, no phones in the bedroom at night, access only to specific apps, private account settings, parental control of passwords, or were forbidden to post but allowed to view friends’ posts. Several households allowed a gradual evolution of rules over time as respondents matured.

Respondents also had a wide range of personal standards regarding social media and phone use — most had no rules for themselves, some used or had tried to use app time limits, some specified certain situations or times of day they tried to avoid usage, others reduced usage by removing social media from their phones to use it only on a computer. Multiple teens volunteered that they struggled with self-control in this area and that they desired to do more.

We asked respondents to rank the impact of digital technology in various aspects of their lives as good, bad, or neutral. They found the most good in the areas of connection, community, engagement, navigation, information access, and innovation. Privacy was their top ranking negative concern. Security/safety, sustainability, ethics, and information overload were terms that also ranked more bad than good.

Next month, we’ll hear more from teens in their own words about their use of digital technology, areas of concern for their peers, and their advice to families of younger children.

Next Community Meeting:

April 10 at 11:00AM

SSDW meets monthly at the Scituate Town Library to discuss new initiatives, upcoming events, and ongoing programming. These meetings are child-friendly and open to the public. We welcome you to drop in anytime!

Our next community meeting is Friday, April 10 from 11:00AM-12:00PM downstairs in the Scituate Town Library Program Room.

To stay up to date on future events, subscribe to our Community Google Calendar!

March’s visit to Wompatuck State Park offered us melty, mucky signs of spring. This was a liminal time in which small moments, like a branch freeing itself after being iced to the ground, signaled the sloughing off of winter’s heavy weight in real time before our eyes. Still other remnants of the cold and dark remained all too prevalent for our hikers; the abandoned duties of many a hurried dog walker, for example!

Join us for our next Outdoor Family Meet Up on Saturday, April 4 at 10:00AM at Conservation Park on the Driftway in Scituate.

We are next reading Playful: How Play Shifts Our Thinking, Inspires Connection, and Sparks Creativity by Cas Holman, a book on the necessity of playfulness at all ages as a healthy way of engaging with the world. Holman is the inventor of the large-scale building kit Rigamajig and has designed toys and experiences for major brands like Nike and Google.

We will meet on Tuesday, April 7 at 7PM at ABC Reading Adventure (5 Bound Brook Ct, Scituate).

As always, reading is encouraged but not required. Just come meet local parents and share your lived experiences.

We partner with aligned community groups on in-person events that help South Shore families learn, play, and connect #IRL. If you have ideas for community partnerships, please get in touch. We’d be happy to do what we can to make them happen!

Getting the Word Out for “The Honest Hour”

SSDW has partnered with South Shore Public Health Collaborative to launch a parent connection group this spring run by volunteer mental health professionals.

“The Honest Hour” is a supportive space for caregivers to access resources and community on self-selected topics (see the community survey). These may include children’s academic struggles, friend conflicts/concerns, marital concerns, mental health diagnosis questions, phone use/screen time, reported suicidal ideation, school resistance, self-harm, social isolation, social media issues, substance use, trauma, and other topics.

The introductory meeting will be held April 9 at 6PM at the Scituate Senior Center, and from there, the offering will evolve to meet participant needs and schedules. We ask interested participants to please RSVP (no cost) and share this opportunity with a friend.

Each month, we ask South Shore residents about digital wellness at home and in community.

1) What does digital wellness mean to you?

Everything is changing so fast these days, including technology. When I think of "digital wellness," I think that I'm using technology to meet my goals.

For example, I might be learning about local events over Facebook or texting with a faraway friend. A healthy use of technology is when it's helping me with my real, embodied life.

2) What does this look like in practice for your family?

Our kids are older - they are all in middle school. Some of our norms have changed over time, but others have been consistent.

We have nightly dinners together, and no one uses phones over dinner (we haven't even had to make a rule, it's just how it's always been). We're also pretty consistent that the only tech in the kids' bedrooms are these devices that only have music, ebooks and audiobooks - and even these turn off overnight. We have a habit of gathering together to chat, play games, go on walks, etc. and these experiences are device-free.

We have two kids that moderate their tech use pretty well, and one that really struggles with this. This means we have more rules around tech than we otherwise would, because our one child needs very clear expectations.

3) In the year ahead, what might digital wellness look like for our community?

I think that kids are really influenced by what they see adults do, so I think that we adults can model being present with each other.

I live in Scituate, and there are a lot of community events and activities here, which I think is really important. It can be easy to just "show up" at a library event, walk around the harbor, or meet at the beach.

Continuing to offer fun and engaging activities and staying off our phones when we're hanging out are so important. I love that the elementary and middle schools don't allow phones during the school day and would love to see the high school move in that direction. 

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