The general perspective from the anthroposophical world on phones, devices, etc, is generally that of the "phone bad" and even though usually anthroposophy provides very progressive and balanced (and in my opinion good) viewpoints on issues, i think on the issue of "phone" the big organisations in anthroposophy really fall behind.

But why is this?

This would usually be the part in the article where i would answer the question and move onto another section, but i just actually don't even know the answer. I recently spent three months at the Goetheanum (and their studies program is something i would highly reccomend to anyone interested it's really not as expensive as you might think) and there is this kind of prevailing attitude amongst the leadership of "phone bad" and also a prevailing lack of understanding. And in my opinion, a lack of thinking about these things.

And the people who push this stuff also can't give a convincing answer as to why they think this, which to me is ample proof that they don't actually know what they're talking about

This kind of "of course kids shouldn't ever use anything with a screen" and alongside implications that "screens" are always harmful attitude seemingly is always pushed in a much more black-and-white way than basically anything else in anthroposophy is.

And it leads to things like the youth section putting out things like this;

From 26.isc.international

The art is good but this concept is just so overdone, and the name "connect to disconnect" is so unimaginably uncreative i don't even know what else to say about it. Overall, when i saw a flyer for this in person i got second hand embarrassment for everyone involved in running this event.

But in the year of our lord 2026, what could possess someone to make something like this?

I would say this is a real example of overintellectualisation about a concept that the person doing the overintellectualising doesn't actually know that much about. And also the concept of "the screen" and "screen time" which is often pushed seemingly comes from an external view of observing others using technology, and not from actually using it.

In my opinion, actual, proper education and individual research into these things is the way to go. I personally think an overly restrictive "screen time" approach rooted in guilt and punishment will lead to a massively unhealthy relationship to technology, and that's not what we want.

We want people to deeply understand technology, what it does, why, and then, in freedom, decide what we want to do with it; how we want to use it. We should not be looking to just restrict for the sake of restricting. And you might find that, when people are allowed to find the good for themselves, they will. With no restrictions, there will be the most restrictions.

If that makes sense.

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