Screenagers: Growing Up in the Digital Age
A Conversations from Main Street Event
Tuesday, September 27, at 7:30 p.m.
Are you watching kids scroll through life, with their rapid-fire thumbs and a six-second attention span? Physician and filmmaker Delaney Ruston saw that with her own kids and learned that the average kid spends 6.5 hours a day looking at screens. She wondered about the impact of all this time and about the friction occurring in homes and schools around negotiating screen time—friction she knew all too well.
In Screenagers, as with her award-winning documentaries on mental health, Delaney takes a deeply personal approach as she probes into the vulnerable corners of family life, including her own, to explore struggles over social media, video games, academics and internet addiction. Through poignant, and unexpectedly funny stories, along with surprising insights from authors, psychologists, and brain scientists, Screenagers reveals how tech time impacts kids’ development and offers solutions on how adults can empower kids to best navigate the digital world and find balance.
Landmark on Main Street is proud to present this important film as part of the Conversations from Main Street series. Conversations is underwritten by a grant from the Angela & Scott Jaggar Foundation, and provides an open forum for presentation and discussion of important family, educational and public affairs issues.
The film will be followed by a panel discussion and audience Q-and-A session. Our panel will be moderated by Dana Friedman, President of the Early Years Institute and member of the NY State Early Childhood Advisory Council, and will comprise educators, parents, physicians and authors, including Dr. Mary Ellen Renna, pediatrician and best-selling author of 10 Steps to Almost Perfect Parenting (available for purchase at the event).
Delaney Ruston is a filmmaker, Stanford-trained doctor and mother of two. Along with Screenagers, her award-winning feature documentaries include Unlisted: A Story of Schizophrenia (PBS), about her father, and Hidden Pictures (PBS), about global mental health.
Delaney has been invited to speak and screen these and other films to hundreds of audiences in diverse settings around the world—such as at primary schools, conferences, medical centers, universities, the United Nations, the TEDx stage in Seattle and the World Health Organization. For her work in using film in launching advocacy movements, Delaney has won several awards.
Free admission to all Conversations from Main Street programs is made possible by a generous grant from the Angela & Scott Jaggar Foundation. No tickets are required.
The evening’s event is presented in conjunction with The Port Washington Public Library, Port Washington Children’s Center, Port Washington Early Childhood Partnership and Dolphin Bookshop.
Landmark thanks their 2016-17 Partners in Performing Arts: Harding Real Estate, Peter & Jeri Dejana Family Foundation, Peter A. Forman Charitable Foundation, Town of North Hempstead and Winthrop University Hospital. Landmark also receives funding support from the New York State Council on the Arts.
