They might seem like one of the most innocent things in your suitcase – but your mobile phone is at risk of ruining your holiday.
A whopping six in ten Brits believe their digital devices are taking over their lives, and many of us struggle to switch-off from mindless doom scrolling.
Author Nicole Kennedy and her husband Tom, both 40, decided to stop taking away tech such as gaming consoles and kindles on holiday after growing sick of their kids ' attachment to them.
While visiting Dubai last year, the couple grew fed up when son's Dylan, nine, Artie, seven, and Felix, five, wanted to play Minecraft instead of visiting the world's largest waterpark,
To combat this, the couple made their kids ditch the game consoles, and now make it a rule to not take away tech with them.
Get the news you want straight to your inbox. Sign up for a Mirror newsletter here
Writing about it for The Mirror, Nicole explains: "I was standing on the 11 th floor of a beautiful hotel in Dubai last October, overlooking the world’s largest waterpark, and beyond that the ocean, when I realised something had gone very wrong.
"I’d just called to my three sons (then aged four, six and eight) that it was time to hit said waterpark, and all three of them started moaning and crying that they wanted to inish the games they were playing on their Kindles first.
"This happened every day on our holiday, despite setting parameters such as five-minute warnings.
"Once we’d made it to the waterpark, or the beach, they were thrilled. For a period. Soon it would start up again: 'Can we have tech time?'
'No,’ My husband and I would say crossly, huffing to each other, ‘Can you imagine coming here as a kid and wanting to sit on a screen?’
"It was infuriating that this time together which should have been so precious – our first family holiday in almost three years – was fraught.
"It wasn’t just us. As I gazed around the pool or beach or hotel restaurants, I was struck by how many kids were glued to tablets and smartphones, the inevitable outbursts when they were turned off. It was depressing.
"We weren’t a very tech-focused family before the pandemic but with three boys home-schooling and two parents trying to work we had become more reliant on it.
"I realised my sons didn’t know how to be bored. And being bored as a kid is great; in fact, I think it’s essential.
"I credit my creativity and book-writing now to a childhood spent bored witless. Being bored is when your imagination kicks in. Tech had seeped into our lives and now the cons were outweighing the pros, but what could we do about it?
"By the end of our holiday, I was convinced we needed to make a significant change. I explained my concerns to the boys: that we’d become too dependent on screen time and we needed a break, including from TV.
Do you try to live a tech-free lifestyle? Email rosaleen.fenton@reachplc.com
"They were all upset initially and the first few days were tough-going. There were tantrums and tears, from all of us. But as the days wore on the boys became noticeably calmer. Less agitated. More receptive to the tech-free plan.
"I showed them articles about how tech is designed to be addictive; how for that reason the very people who create it often don’t let their own children use it. Their frustration turned to interest.
"Slowly they began to forget about screens. Instead, they kept busy making up their own comic books and games, junk modelling, building dens, and playing football. Things they had lost interest in.
"These days the boys have an hour of tech at the weekend. They don’t ask for it during the week. In the holidays they sometimes do coding camps; we figured if they’re playing Minecraft they might as well be learning how to code it themselves.
"And we don’t take tech on holiday. We live in a tech-centred world; we can’t avoid it totally but we want to teach them how to use it with a healthy balance.
Last Easter we went to Wales, our first time away since the Dubai trip and without tech.
"Instead, we brought a LEGO Land Rover to build and watched re-runs of the same Scooby-Do episode on the fuzzy, terrestrial TV in our cottage and we didn’t argue about screen-time once.
"It wasn’t perfect, but it was a whole lot better."
Nicole Kennedy’s latest book After Paris is published on the 21st July, hardback, £20, by Aria
