Description

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Empower teens to take charge of their digital lives.

Without avoiding the dark side of technology, this interactive and comprehensive reference book empowers teens to take charge of their digital life and improve their mental health and well-being. Quizzes and exercises guide readers through the process of evaluating their relationships with their screens, social media, and tech in general.

With a frank and humorous approach to a timely topic, award-winning author Alex J. Packer, Ph.D., pulls back the curtain on the hidden aspects of the digital world and shares:

• Signs that screen time is affecting teens’ bodies, brains, and relationships
• Tips for protecting their privacy, safety, and reputation
• Ways social media and algorithms can distort their reality and sense of self
• Tools for finding life balance and resetting their screen scene

Slaying Digital Dragons is a call to action to make the choices that are right for teens. It doesn’t demand ditching smartphones or deactivating social media. Instead, it suggests strategies for playing favorite games and posting on favorite apps, while also doing good in the world and bringing joy and encouragement to others. It invites readers to join the resistance and learn how to thwart the manipulative forces trying to control and profit off their users. And it gives teens what they need to stay safe and take charge of their digital life.

For more must-have advice from Alex J. Packer, Ph.D., check out How Rude: The Teen Guide to Good Manners, Proper Behavior, and Not Grossing People Out (Revised & Updated Edition).

About the Author

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'Etiquette Guru to the Youth of America,' Alex J. Packer, Ph.D., is an educator, psychologist, and award-winning author of numerous books for parents and teenagers including How Rude! The Teen Guide to Good Manners, Proper Behavior, and Not Grossing People Out and Slaying Digital Dragons ™ Tips and tools for protecting your body, brain, psyche, and thumbs from the digital dark side. Alex's books have been translated into many languages, including Spanish, German, Korean, Japanese, Thai, Mandarin, Greek, Romanian, and Serbian.

Alex is sought after by the media for his provocative commentary on manners, child-rearing, and substance abuse prevention, and has been the subject of numerous radio, television, and print interviews. Alex has led workshops and lectured widely across the United States and around the world. Talks have taken him to locations as far-flung as Caracas, Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Paris, Hamburg, Shanghai, Bogota, Beijing, Tokyo, and Mexico City.

Numerous associations have invited Alex to speak and lead workshops at their conferences, including the European Council of International Schools (ECIS), National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), Association of Boarding Schools (TABS), Association for the Advancement of International Education (AAIE) and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD).

For 14 years, Alex was President and CEO of FCD Educational Services. Founded in 1976 and recently acquired by Hazelden, FCD is the leading nonprofit provider of onsite K-12 substance abuse prevention services for schools throughout the United States and in over 65 countries abroad. For eight years, Alex was headmaster of an innovative alternative school in Washington, DC for children ages 11-15. He also served as Director of Education for the Capital Children's Museum.

His feature-length screenplay, "Digby and Fly," won Grand Prize in the Massachusetts Film Office Screenwriting Competition. His proposal for an interactive family television series was optioned by Popular Arts Entertainment in Los Angeles. Alex graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy and holds undergraduate and Master's degrees from Harvard University and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a Ph.D. in Educational and Developmental Psychology from Boston College.

Praise For…

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• 2023 National Parenting Product Award Winner

“This interactive, comprehensive guide helps teens thrive online and off. Slaying Digital Dragons trusts teens to make the right decisions for themselves and gives them the information and tools to do so, while also calling on them to use their abundant empathy to make the world a better place.”
— Dr. Michele Borba, parenting and bullying-prevention expert, author of End Peer Cruelty, Build Empathy; Thrivers; and Unselfie

“Slaying Digital Dragons illuminates one of the dimmest, least understood, most impactful domains of life today, especially in the lives of children and teens: screens. Alex J. Packer breaks new ground in this authoritative, impeccably researched but also highly engaging, funny, and practical manual on how to take advantage of the huge upsides of the digital world while avoiding the diabolically dangerous traps it sets for the unsuspecting. This is an important and much-needed guide on how to navigate and thrive in the world young people inhabit and absorb every day.”
— Edward M. Hallowell, M.D., founder of The Hallowell Centers; author of ADHD 2.0

“This book is truly the War and Peace for teens and anyone who spends a vast amount of time on their screens. Alex J. Packer’s manifesto for slaying the digisphere is a lifesaver. Join the resistance and share this powerful book. It will help you and your friends retool, regroup, and set healthier standards for abating the dark forces beyond your control.”
— Nancy Chuda, co-founder and president emeritus of Healthy Child Healthy World

“Teens are on their phones and screens for seven and a half hours every day. Most of them know that they are either addicted to their devices or in danger of getting addicted, but when their parents bring the subject up, kids react defensively and angrily. In his funny, straight-talking new book, Slaying Digital Dragons, Alex J. Packer offers teens a way to think about their relationships to their devices. Relying on cutting-edge research and his deep insights into children, Packer is by turns supportive and challenging, humorous and dead serious. If you want your teen to examine their smartphone use, if you want to have a productive conversation with your child about social media, you should buy this book for yourself and your child.”
— Michael Thompson, Ph.D., New York Times bestselling coauthor of Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys

“I loved this book, 5 stars! The author’s approach to this subject was very humorous and extremely engaging, I enjoyed every second.”
— Bailey D., 12th-grade student

“This is a book kids need to read.”