Kids IRL (in real life) is our Marin-wide coordinated effort to make childhood more IRL and less URL.

Kids IRL (in real life) is a Marin County-wide coordinated effort to keep digital tech in check and roll it out more slowly to our children - so screens don’t crowd out essential childhood activities. By changing local norms together, we reduce pressure on parents and kids, protect our children’s mental health, and improve family life.

WHY DO WE NEED KIDS IRL?

As a result...
Average daily screen time is increasing and starting earlier.

Sources: Common Sense Media, 2025, ages 0-8; Common Sense Media, 2021, ages 8-18.

And...
Excess screen time is crowding out IRL activities essential to healthy development.

Sources: US Report Card on Physical Activity, 2022; National Trust, 2018; Anxious Generation, 2024; Common Sense Media, 2023

The stakes are HIGH.

Studies show that youth mental health has gotten worse since 2010 - when digital media use ramped up.

Sources: Anxious Generation, 2024; Common Sense Media, 2024, ages 12-17

Today, 65% of teens rate the mental health of kids and teenagers in their community as fair or poor. At a time when tech is supposedly connecting humanity, rates of loneliness and isolation are at an all-time high.

And, academic outcomes have worsened globally in reading, math, and science. Reading scores peaked in 2012, and have steadily fallen since then - partly because scrolling phones replaced reading books.

Source: OECD (2023), PISA 2022 Results: The State of Learning and Equity in Education.

Taken together, it is clear that childhood’s migration from IRL to URL isn’t going well for our community or our kids’ health and wellbeing.

Overuse and misuse of digital media is affecting everything that matters in childhood and is a key lever in our public health crisis.

So what do we do?

The impact of tech overuse in childhood is a collective problem and a community shift here in Marin is our most practical and immediate solution. We the community - parents, educators, clinicians, coaches, mentors, youth - need to take local action to adopt a more sustainable approach to all this tech in our lives.

While we CAN’T control the tsunami of tech that is only growing, and we CAN’T control when critical tech regulation will protect children, we CAN control when, where, and how we introduce digital media to our children. We must get tech in check and restore the fundamental activities core to a healthy childhood.

And it’ll be a lot easier and quicker if we take action together.

Change is possible, if we act together.

Be part of a community solution in Marin! Kids IRL (in real life) is a countywide coordinated effort to keep digital tech in check and roll it out more slowly to our children - so screens don’t crowd out essential childhood activities. Kids IRL is heavily influenced by the four community norms and the collective call to action outlined in Jonathan Haidt’s book, Anxious Generation. If you are unfamiliar with his work, we recommend starting with our blog post “We’re at a Tipping Point.”

By changing local norms together, we reduce pressure on parents and kids, protect our children’s mental health, and improve family and community life.

To foster healthy, engaged, and interconnected youth, we need all hands on deck in order to restore the systems and environments that youth need! As Sean Killingsworth poignantly explains in his Ted Talk, the eco-system for real life is currently a wasteland. We need youth input to shape our efforts and help us improve the eco-system they are growing up in, so it’s fortified for the digital age.

So - parents, educators, clinicians, and youth program providers in Marin - join us and help guide local change. Together let’s keep tech in check, roll it out slowly and thoughtfully to our children, AND expand opportunities for IRL play and connections.