The Department of Health and Human Services is releasing a new children’s book that encourages kids to put down screens and rediscover the joys of creative play as part of a national effort to combat the harms of excessive screen use.
“The Magic Tablet” tells the story of little girl named Eleanor, who discovers a world of wonder when she spends a day using her imagination after her parents won’t let her have a tablet. Young readers follow Eleanor and her magic tablet through a wonderful day filled with drawing with her brother, spending time with friends at a playground, and enjoying a healthy family dinner — all without screens.
“The Magic Tablet reminds us of something simple and powerful: Children do not need a device to discover a new world. They need imagination,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. writes in the book’s introduction.
The Department of Health and Human Services is publishing the book as part of its Live Real Life campaign, which aims to give kids a healthier childhood by decreasing harmful screen use. The book is dedicated to the “amazing” kids living in America and the adults “who have the pleasure of guiding their childhood and the delight in watching them grow up.”
On Tuesday, the department will host a Live Real Life Symposium, bringing together leaders in medicine, technology, and education to discuss how to help kids “thrive offline.” The list of speakers includes Kennedy and Haridopolos, as well as Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz.
“HHS is convening healthcare leaders, researchers, advocates, and technology companies for a Live Real Life symposium focused on screen-related harms and practical solutions to help kids thrive offline,” the department says. “This builds on the Office of the Surgeon General’s Advisory outlining the health and developmental concerns tied to social media and technology use in children and adolescents.”
“More than 40 percent of school-aged children and adolescents have at least one chronic health condition,” Kennedy adds. “Screens now surround children from their earliest days and have become a profound driver of this decline. Many children spend more time looking at screens than sleeping, exercising, playing outside, or talking face-to-face with family and friends. Too many of our kids are growing up isolated and caught in unhealthy relationships with technology. But childhood does not have to look this way.”
Dr. Stephanie Haridopolos, director of National Health Communication for the Office of the Surgeon General, adds in the book’s foreward that childhood “should always be full of magic.”
Encouraging kids to have a healthy relationship with technology “is not only about what we ask young people to put down,” Haridopolos writes. “It is also about what we encourage them to pick up, and what they might discover when they do.”
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