ORU How-To

Megan says:

As a parent, I know how important it is for me to model healthy screen habits for my son, but I will freely admit I used to struggle with this. I can be a bit of a news junkie. Trying to stick to good screen habits with willpower alone would work for a week or two, but some big news event would inevitably get me scrolling again.

I wasn’t able to fix my own relationship with tech until I discovered some great products that have allowed me to fight tech with tech. One of the products I find most helpful is called Brick. It’s a small, secondary device that lets me create modes on my phone. With Brick, I have “work mode” which eliminates everything distracting, but still allows the tools I need to work. I also have “family” mode that limits my phone to just texting, calling and maps. And when I unBrick, my phone reverts back to having everything on it. It’s so simple - you just tap your phone to the Brick to switch back and forth. You can also set a schedule to automatically switch back and forth for you. I had been coveting a Light Phone to keep my phone from being so distracting, but I was deterred by the Light Phone’s price. I also worried that I might need something that didn’t exist on the Light Phone. Brick allows me to turn the phone I already have into a Light Phone whenever I want. Because Brick has a setting called “strict mode”, it also seems like it would work really well as a parental control option. My teenage son has agreed to test Brick’s strength as a parental control tool for me. We’ve Bricked his phone while he’s home from college for the summer, and he’s trying as hard as he can to get around it. I’ll keep you posted! In the meantime, if anyone reading the ORU newsletter has tried to use Brick for parental controls, reach out and let us know how it worked!