Mission Statement
We are parents committed to helping our kids achieve social media-free childhoods until they graduate high school. When adolescents have no access to social media, they gain access to deeper engagement with their families, interests and self assurance. When we change the culture around “everyone has it except my child” by linking arms with other parents in our communities and committing to embargo social media together beginning in the elementary grades, we set our children up for success before peer pressure can take it from them.
Why Osprey?
When children grow up without social media, they aren’t exposed to the adult world before they’re emotionally prepared to deal with it. They are more engaged, with strong verbal conversation skills, they have longer attention spans to learn more, emotional bandwidth isn’t drained by superficial social media experiences, they can focus on the activities and outlets and sports and interests that may become their passion and vocation without judgment. As technology progresses making simple tasks more replaceable, we choose to lean into teaching human connection to the next generation, powerfully equipping them for the future.
Why Now?
Many of the generation of parents raising elementary age children finished high school around the advent of social media and smartphones. We were the last generation to experience a fully engaged low-tech childhood, even as we had access to home computers and cell phones as teenagers. We have a unique perspective to see what our children stand to miss out on, and what they stand to gain by delaying social media use. When we’re not mature enough, social media dulls our humanity. We lose empathy, we hurt others with criticism we wouldn’t share in real life, we say things we regret that can’t be taken back, we make spontaneous choices with lifelong consequences. Children see and learn things that end their childhood innocence before they’re able to process or understand it in a healthy way. Social media has been around for less time than most well-known pharmaceuticals. Much like a drug in early development, we do not fully know the long term side effects. We would rather childhood in the 2020s not become the test kitchen of this powerful concept.
Who Is It For?
We primarily exist to support parents of kindergarten – 6th grade children, who have not yet been entrenched in the world of social media. Osprey is for parents who want to create a dynamic, engaged childhood for their kids, and preserve the value of authentic human connection.