Newsletter #05 April 2026
Hello Friends!
We have exciting news on the newsletter front this month!
In alignment with our values around screens and screentime we are pivoting our newsletter from email to carrier pigeon!
Expect May’s newsletter to be delivered promptly on the first Wednesday of May by our new feathery fleet of newsletter carriers (and feel free to tip them in seeds and nuts)!
In other words... Happy April Fool’s Day!
We had a lot of fun figuring out what direction to take our prank for this newsletter (the other direction was announcing that we have partnered with Meta ha ha).
April Fool’s Day sillies aside, it feels like so much is coming to fruition for us this spring. We are having one of our first events that centers play, crafts, connectivity, and learning for ages 3 and up!
Join us at Woo-Woo (on Sunday, April 12th from 2-5pm) for an afternoon of unplugged fun! We’re building cardboard villages, we’re populating the villages with pipe cleaner critters, fairies, and people, there will be story time, there will be TWO 30 Second Dance Party buttons for two very lucky attendees, and there will be connection and community as far as the eye can see! It is such a joy to co-host this event with Dr. Doreen Dodgen-Magee who has years of experience facilitating unplugged days in Portland, Oregon. We’d love to see you there. All ages are welcome and encouraged. Reserve your spot here.
Beyond that Sunday, we feel very lucky to offer you an in-person talk by Jared Cooney Horvath, who is a sought-after international speaker, exclusively for OR Unplugged newsletter subscribers & parents at the Sunnyside Environmental School (so lets keep this link between you and me) - Join us Thursday, April 23rd from 6-7:30pm at Sunnyside Environmental School (3421 Southeast Salmon Street. Portland, OR 97214) to hear Horvath talk about brain science, learning, and technology through the lens of his experiences as a neuroscientist, researcher, parent, and educator. Reserve your seat here while you can! Tickets will open to the public on April 17th and seats are limited!
Can’t make it to this event but want more Jared (who doesn’t)? You can watch his testimony in front of the US Senate here or check out our favorite webinar of the moment: Untangling Ed Tech: Theory, Vision, Practice.
On the horizon in May of this year we are also offering an exclusive, invitation-only screening of Your Attention Please - a new documentary on the value of attention and the global fight to take back our attention from big tech.
Join us on Monday, May 18th from 5:30 to 8:30pm at McMenamins Mission Theater (1624 NW Glisan Street. Portland, OR 97209) for a special screening of the film and a panel discussion following. This is another special event we’re keeping a little hush-hush, so please don’t share the RSVP link with those outside of our newsletter.
This screening would not be possible without the generous support and collaboration of The Carson J. Bride Effect and the Institute for Families & Technology.
Are events less your speed but you love to read? We have good news!
Our next book club is starting soon!
Join us on every other Friday starting on April 10th to discuss Dopamine Kids by Michaleen Doucleff! Doucleff offers readers a five-step guide to raising confident, happy kids while breaking the cycle of overdependence on screens and other sources of unnaturally high dopamine. Meetings will be held every other Friday at 10am PST (1pm EST).
RSVP here.
Big Deal Nationally:
It’s been a VERY busy season for legislature and legal action in the tech world.
Meta and Google have been found negligent in the social media harms trial in Los Angeles!
This verdict is seismic for big tech. This is the first time that their false promises of improved safety measures and false equivalencies to that of a cellphone carrier have not held up under legal scrutiny. At long last, accountability has arrived.
The verdict in Los Angeles was preceded by a verdict in a separate trial in New Mexico just one day prior that ordered Meta to pay $375 million in damages for failing to protect young users from child predators on Instagram and Facebook.
Sacha Haworth, Executive Director of The Tech Oversight Project summed it up well -
“The era of Big Tech invincibility is over – this ruling is an earthquake that shakes Big Tech’s predatory business model to its core. After years of gaslighting from companies like Google and Meta, new evidence and testimony have pulled back the curtain and validated the harms young people and parents have been telling the world about for years. These products were purposefully designed to harm, addict millions of young people, and lead to lifelong mental health consequences,”
To read more on this, we recommend checking out the Tech Policy Press’ overview or Dr. Doreen Dodgen-Magee’s roadmap for where to go from here with the kids and teens in your life.
Big Deal Locally:
A pencil is running for governor!
J. Schuberth, a former teacher for Portland State University’s general education program and one of the founders of reading advocacy group Oregon Kids Read, launched the Pencil for governor campaign Monday to raise awareness about persistent reading proficiency issues among the state’s students. To “get education on the ballot” Schuberth created and funded the Pencil Political Action Committee in early February with $14,000 of their own money.
Read more about this pencil in the race here.
We also encourage you to sign our Letter of Legislative Support to speak up for the changes you want made!
Kathy’s Pick:
It’s Time To Show The Robot To The Door by Valerie Bellomo
Kathy says-
I chose this article to counter the soundbites from the White House who is collaborating with Big Tech $$ and promoting AI as the answer to all our problems, especially for education. I was very triggered by Melanie Trump walking down the aisle at a Global Education Summit, hosted AT the White House, with a robot, which says, “I am grateful to be part of this historic movement to empower children with technology and education.” How can anyone believe this? Look at the data and how we have messed up kids’ lives and school budgets by allowing unregulated, expensive technology in our schools with “promises” that have failed our kids on every measure of cognitive functioning. Are we going to fall for AI promises now too? Show me the proof of research NOT done by Tech companies. Oregon legislators, just put guardrails on chatbots to prevent them from escalating dangerous situations with distressed kids. There are so many emerging symptoms of living in a dystopian reality riddled with AI.
This essay is published as a guest feature on Emily Cherkin’s First Fish Chronicles, If you have any questions on how reduce your child’s EdTech exposure, check out her Unplug EdTech Toolkit and The Four Norms for EdTech for answers.
Jody’s Pick:
The Pen(cil) is Mightier Than the Laptop: The Case for the Analog Classroom by Emily Cherkin
Jody says-
This is a terrific overview of our current educational dilemma concerning Educational Technology (EdTech) and its impact on learning. There are four basic questions that need to be asked about any educational product that enters our children's schools: Is it safe? Is it effective? Is it legal? Does it teach better than a person? Unfortunately, EdTech has a business model that has extracted over $30 billion from our children's educational budgets without meeting any of these basic criteria. Learn more in this excellent article by internationally known screentime expert, Emily Cherkin, who was one of four experts called to testify before a congress on the impacts of technology on child health and development.
Megan’s Pick:
Megan says-
In my work helping families create healthy screen time habits, families with neurodivergent kids are often struggling the most. The addictive design of so many gaming and social media apps is even more compelling to kids with ADHD because their brains process dopamine differently. This episode of The ADHD Parenting Podcast is a fantastic resource for parents trying to make healthy screen time choices for their kids and teens with ADHD. Michael McLeod (The founder of GrowNOW) and Ryan Wexelblatt (founder of ADHD Dude) discuss the latest research around screen time and executive function, and give practical, concrete advice. Michael has ADHD himself, Ryan is raising a son with ADHD and both men have spent their careers helping neurodivergent kids and teens build the executive skills they need to thrive. As a teacher myself for 25 years, I can tell you these guys know their stuff!
Simcha’s Pick:
The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist (2026)
Simcha says-
Megan and I took a little OR Unplugged field trip this week to the movie theater to check out Daniel Roher’s new documentary about AI!
I will be the first to tell you, I am a very critical movie viewer - and in particular a very critical documentary viewer. There are so many documentaries that are so intriguing and yet are executed in a way that makes them disappointing to watch.
This documentary was not one of them!
From the visuals to the sound design to the grounding in the director’s life, I felt like this documentary hit the sweet spot of carrying a clear narrative thread and conveying heaps of information while still being digestible for a viewer with no background knowledge on AI.
Roher covers it all from what AI is to what our possible outcomes with AI could look like in the next ten or twenty years.
My personal key takeaway point is just how much of AI is tied to the military and automation of things like missiles.
It’s rare that I watch a movie and feel like I’d want to watch it again so that I could discuss it with a new group of people and this movie checks that box for me.
We talk about the idea of the “first fish” often (Thanks Emily Cherkin!) and I think we are at a pivotal point in time with regards to our AI fish. For the environment, for our brains, for our kids, and for their futures it feels integral for us to opt-out of using AI in any way possible and to be the fish we want to see in the sea.
You can find information about where it’s showing near you using your zip code here and you might just see me at the theater!
Our coalitions have been hard at work (and enjoying some spring break time I am sure).
And amidst the time to rest and the hard work ahead, the BSD Safe Tech Coalition has been featured in OregonLive!
Read about them and their push to get EdTech out of the BSD here and sign their petition here.
What are you getting up to in your coalitions? What projects are on the docket? What changes are you making? Tell us here and we can feature you in our May newsletter!
OR Unplugged is a non-profit organization run almost entirely by volunteers. Your donations and volunteer time both support creating & distributing resources, putting on events, doing outreach, facilitating workshops, and much much more. You can help us show up for our community and build a better future for our kids. Any support is welcome and appreciated. You can donate here and learn more about volunteering here.
Comments, queries, or concerns? You can reach us 24/7 (practically) at ORUnplugged@proton.me
Warmly and with gratitude,
the OR Unplugged team
Kathy, Jody, Megan, & Simcha
