Monday 23 December, 2024

The sister of Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg tells kids to go offline

Crawl away from the screen.

IT’LL PROBABLY BE awkward at Zuckerberg family gatherings for the next while.

Randi Zuckerberg, older sister of Facebook creater Mark, is releasing two books next month.

The first one, aimed at adults, is about her time at Facebook, founding Zuckerberg Media and starting a family. The second is a picture story for children that encourages them to step back from their computers.

The books are called ‘Dot Complicated: Untangling our Wired Lives’ (inspired by her blog) and ‘Dot.’ which is the one aimed at children. Zuckerberg was inspired to write it after seeing her own two-year-old begin to interact with technology.

‘Dot.’ is the story of a little girl called Dot who is obsessed with technology. Throughout the book, she learns that life is much richer when you step away from your device and experience life first hand.

Zuckerberg said recently:

Today’s children now live in three worlds: the real world, the imaginary world, and now, more increasingly, the virtual/mobile screen world.

She worries that mindlessly surfing through this virtual world will overtake the time kids would otherwise spend playing games and using their own imagination to be creative.

Both books are published by HarperCollins and will go on sale on November 5th. There will also be a doll version of Dot available to buy – complete with a tablet in her hand.

Hmm, hopefully it’s a detachable tablet. Otherwise, it kind of defeats the purpose.