NYC, state officials reveal free ways to get kids off their phones and outside: ‘Don’t scroll through life’
City and state officials urged New York parents Tuesday to get their kids off their phones and outside — and they gave a few suggestions on how to do it.
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that pools at New York’s state parks will be free to all for the rest of the summer — including at Jones Beach on Long Island, Riverbank State Park in Manhattan, Roberto Clemente State Park Pool in The Bronx and Bear Mountain in the Hudson Valley.
The state will also chip in $1.5 million in transportation grants to help get disadvantaged kids to swim lessons at the pools, she said.
“This is to promote mental health and physical health and encourage families and our kids to just go back to a throwback time,” Hochul said at a morning press conference in Upper Manhattan’s Riverbank park.
“Think about when you were young,” she said. “What you did with your time — you kicked the ball and just played catch, you swam. You just enjoyed life.
“You weren’t sitting indoors being held captive to your cell phone,” she said. “So that’s our advice. Don’t scroll through life. Just dive in. Let’s get started.”
David Banks, the Big Apple’s public-schools chancellor, separately kicked off the city’s Summer Rising program — which will offer about 110,000 elementary-school kids a litany of summer academic and enrichment activities that include field trips and outdoor recreation.
“That is a huge, huge deal,” Bank said of the numbers of spots, which are typically offered, while at an appearance at Elizabeth Blackwell Middle School in Queens. “This is probably our most sought-after program. The kids are really excited.”
“Kids are going to do a lot of fun activities,” he said. “They are going to be moving all over the city. I’ve always said that the city is our classroom and that the whole world lives here. And that some of the best learning happens outside of the four walls of these schools.
“So they’re going to take plenty of trips, they’re going to do a lot of hands-on experiential learning, and that is how the minds of young people get developed,” he said. “They have to learn by doing and by being engaged.”
At least one participant agreed.
Sherlyn Sanchez, an 11-year-old student at MS 120Q, said she loved the water parks and field trips the program shuttled her to last year.
“We had to do something educational, and then we got time to play,” the young girl said, adding that she’d tell other students that the program was “fun — very fun!”
The programs are part of a concerted effort to get kids offline and outdoors when the weather is warmest — which, in turn, will improve mental health, officials said.
Studies have shown strong links between excessive smartphone use and anxiety, depression and other scourges — especially among kids.
Spending more than a few hours each week using electronic media correlated with lower levels of self-reported happiness, satisfaction and self-esteem, according to one 2018 study of adolescents.
“Adolescents who spent more time on electronic communication and screens [e.g., social media, the Internet, texting, gaming] and less time on no-screen activities [e.g., in-person social interaction, sports/exercise, homework, attending religious services] had lower psychological well-being,” the study’s authors concluded.
Meanwhile, kids who spent the least amount of time staring at their screens were the happiest, it said.
At Hochul’s press conference, the governor — who wore a blue baseball hat and Converse sneakers — said her “Get Offline, Get Outside” campaign was squarely aimed at improving kids’ mental health.
“Yes, it’s about getting offline and outside,” she said. “We need to get focused on youth mental health — it’s a top priority of mine and our legislators.”
The state is also investing about $150 million in constructing new swimming pools and improving existing ones throughout the Empire State, she added, saying that the New York is “taking our children back.
“[We are] letting them be children who have less stress, no mental-health challenges, and just let them be children once again, as they’ve always deserved to be — letting them get outside,” she said.
Kim Walton and her daughter, 11-year-old Maddison Rogers, met Hochul as she walked around the pool, shaking hands.
Walton, of the Lower East Side, said her family thoroughly enjoys the pools every summer.
“I love it,” she told The Post. “We come every year.”
She added that Hochul asked her daughter if she likes swimming and if she’s reading books instead of meandering around on her phone.
“And yes, she’s doing all of that,” the proud mom said.
