With the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, most activities including education, work and entertainment have gone online. Amid this, parent magazine ParentCircle has come up with an innovative campaign to encourage parents to get off gadgets and spend time with their kids. The campaign has been dubbed the #GadgetFreeHour campaign and its third edition will take place on November 20, 2021.

Those participating in the campaign are being urged to disconnect from their gadgets and spend time with their children between 7.30 pm and 8.30 pm and engage in activities such as playing, talking, eating etc. The basic intention is to have fun in each other’s company.

According to ParentCircle, the Tamil Nadu Government Education Department is extending its support for the Gadget Free Hour initiative by sharing a message to all the schools urging teachers and parents, along with their children, to take a break from their online schedules to spend one hour with their families.

ParentCircle further claimed that over 10 lakh parents and over 41,000 schools participated in the campaign during its second edition on November 20, 2020. “The ongoing pandemic has had us turn to technology like never before and boundaries between the use of gadgets for recreation, education, distraction, and communication have blurred significantly. Honoring a Gadget Free Hour by every person and every family, on a regular basis, becomes crucial for us to engage with life more completely and not through the filters of technology,” said Dr Nithya Poornima who is a clinical psychologist and former Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at National Institute Of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) in Bengaluru.

Earlier, Nalina Ramalakshmi who is the founder and Managing Director of ParentCircle, speaking to TNM had emphasised the need of good communication and connection between parents and kids for a strong relationship. To achieve this, she had said that parents have to spend quality time with children, free from distractions, especially gadgets and screens, at least for a few minutes in a day.