These 14 video lessons are to be used with the workbook, the Digital Vortex Survival Guide. The workbook is available on Amazon.com (buy workbook here). These videos reinforce learning and help you and your children understand the concepts in the book. The Digital Vortex Survival Guide course is designed for ages 12 and up.
The digital world is designed to grab our attention through the allure of increased productivity, interactivity, and entertainment, all within instant reach of our smartphones and mobile devices. We have endless access to movies, social interactivity, music, games, and anything the human mind creates in a digital environment. Is this all good? Is this all bad? Healthy usage of digital media entertainment lies somewhere between one to three hours per day. The problem is the average child is overdosing on digital media entertainment at more than seven hours daily! Julie, Christie, and Dr. Doan approach this topic with neuroscience research, proven solutions, and Biblical wisdom. This workbook is designed to educate, increase awareness, and prevent your kids and family from being sucked into the digital vortex!
Julie Doan is a registered nurse who has an interest in child development, neuroscience, and digital media addictions. She is a highly-demanded speaker with near perfect 5-star Verified Reviews®. Dr. Andrew & Julie Doan have over 95,000 followers on Facebook and 550,000 followers on their Christian Recovery Resource Facebook page where they evangelize, teach, and share about problems with excessive digital media use. Dr. Andrew Doan received his MD and PhD degrees in neuroscience at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Christie Walsh is the Director of Development for Real Battle Ministries. After spending 10 years dedicated to studying the problems associated with digital media overuse and finding solutions for her family, she realized this is an issue that is affecting the best and brightest of our youth, is a worldwide phenomenon, spans every age group and must be made known. Together Julie Doan, Christie Walsh and Dr. Doan have developed this workbook to educate and empower people to help win this very Real Battle!
Endorsements
This workbook is a refreshing and substantial combination of the truth in the word of life, neuroscience excellence, neural pruning, insights into brain programming, and strategies for achieving optimal health. Doan & Walsh do a masterful job identifying the unhealthy and addictive behaviors that program our brains and provide discussion questions to reprogram or prevent unhealthy brain programming. This may be the most important workbook in years. After 10 years of iPhones and Androids, we may actually have less freedom in this digital world. The message contained within the Digital Vortex Survival Guide will stir you and shake you. Hopefully it will also move parents and families to find true freedom in moderation and authenticity within this digital world. – Daniel J van Ingen, Psy.D., Clinical Psychologist, Parenting Doctors, Author of You Are Your child’s Best Psychologist: 7 Keys to Parenting with Excellence
Our youth is our future, and we all must be concerned with the growing numbers of youth addicted to video games and other social and entertainment media. Their brains are exposed to these harmful contents at a time they are developing, forever changing neuronal connections. With excessive exposure to addictive media, the brains on one hand develop neuronal connections of unhealthy habits and thoughts, and on the other hand are held back from developing healthy neuronal connections needed for a happy life. In this carefully designed book, Julie Doan, R.N., and Christie Walsh provide, in a step by step approach, education to understand what happens to our brains and what our brains need, and the spiritual and behavioral tools to arrive there. By doing so, this book becomes an invaluable tool in educating our youth and providing them with a life of purpose, a Godly life. – K. Drorit Gaines, Ph.D. Clinical and Forensic Neuropsychologist UCLA Department of Pediatrics, Faculty, Vl.
Julie and Christie convey complex neuroscience and brain development in an understandable way. The workbook is well-designed with great graphics to help teens and parents understand how behaviors and digital media affect the brain. The book is timely and brilliant. All families and teens need this book, at least the ones who want to succeed in the digital age and avoid being sucked into a digital vortex. –Aaron Tabor, M.D., Founder of Jesus Daily® with over 30 million Facebook followers
Digital Vortex Survival Guide – a new workbook written by Julie Doan and Christie Walsh provides an interesting point of view for the potential threats of new technology overuse. As research data show, in 2016, 24% of children below the age of 10 regularly (on a daily basis) were using the internet without parental control and among teenagers, it was 98%. Screens and digital media are a huge part of everyday life for adults and kids. This digital revolution sneaked into our lives almost unnoticed and we were never taught how to use tech in the way which is safe for our family relations and for the development of kids. Authors present a Christian perspective on this new challenges and a great synthesis of scientific knowledge on learning, brain functioning and development and addictive behaviors. Moreover, the workbook offers set of questions and advice how to deal with daily challenges in a healthy way, preventing from escaping into new technology overuse. Personally, I found it interesting and inspiring and I think it will be an interesting proposition for many families sharing Christian values. – Mateusz Gola, PhD Assistant Professor of Psychology, Head of Clinical Neuroscience Lab at Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences. The author of several scientific publications on psychological and neural mechanisms of problematic pornography use.
We have to get our heads out of the sand to get our kid’s heads out of their devices. Here Julie Doan and Christie Walsh take us through a process to help us lead our children (and our students and ourselves) to use these devices to enhance and not control our lives. I have known Julie for many years and have followed her with “Hooked on Games” and Real Battle ministries and have become an unabashed fan. Julie and Christie are experts in the tricky area of digital media and maybe just as important are realistic, compassionate, and empathetic in their approach to this burgeoning problem. I hope you will work through this work book and take control of these electronic devices which are clearly the opium of our times. – Thomas A Oetting, M.S., M.D., Rudy And Margaret Perez Professor of Ophthalmology, University of Iowa
The Digital Vortex Survival Guide is a welcome resource to address the urgent problem of overexposure to digital media. Authors Julie Doan and Christie Walsh offer valuable medical and psychological perceptions integrated with the timeless and practical wisdom of the Bible. Today’s parents and youth will find a pathway through the dangerous digital maze by reading and interacting with this helpful workbook. – Dr. Jerry Rueb, Lead Pastor, Author, Educator, World Missions Advocate. Cornerstone Church, Long Beach, CA
This outstanding resource is needed now more than ever in our society, a perfect blend of scientific facts and research with timeless eternal truths that can free and protect young person to old person from the barrage and pull of excessive digital media tsunami that we must all learn to surf on and not be destroyed in. I have personally used this survival Guide and it has been a huge help for myself and my family both when I’m here in the USA or the Battle fields of the Iraq. – Victor Marx, Evangelist, Chairman of the Board and President Victor Marx Ministries
What would God say about technology? In the Digital Vortex Survival Guide, Doan and Walsh creatively weave religion with media science and research, offering thought provoking questions which guide readers toward improved technology knowledge and management. If you want to align your family’s use of technology with God’s plan for health and well being, you must experience the journey toward family exploration and reconnection through this wonderful workbook. – Cris Rowan, author of Virtual Child – The terrifying truth about what technology is doing to children.
If you worry about the minds of children in the digital era, then you have to read this groundbreaking book to understand how to integrate digital media into young lives without harming development. Julie Doan and Christie Walsh combine deep Christian values with easy to understand neuroscience in a book and program that will help adults to empower youth as they grow in a digital reality, unlike anything that’s ever existed in human history. – Wayne Elsey, Father, Granddad, Founder of Soles4Souls, Head Coach – Elsey Enterprises
I believe it to be both crucial and critical that while living in this specific hour of human history that we truly posses a clear understanding of Revelation not just Information. Amidst the exterior confusion, darkness and mass distraction of the age, a NEW MIND-SKIN for the NEW-WINE SKIN is required. Here in this extensive and interactive work book, Julie Doan and Christie Walsh expose and grant us access into this most fascinating subject of the brain and its scientific neurological behaviors. Exposing and unlocking us into the real effects regarding the prevalent digital & social media world we’re all surrounded by. The balance of both the scientific and Biblical scriptural insight of TRUTH contained here within these pages is to be compared to that of like a treasure chest of Gold. Providing, suppling and equipping us all, with the necessary tools of engagement into today’s world. It’s my pleasure and honor to HIGHLY endorse and STRONGLY encourage ALL, parents and families, to resource themselves with this book. – Matthew Pollock, Lead Pastor The Way Family Church, Murrieta, CA
Being a Christian Physician for over 22 years, I am surprised to find that I have learned so much from this book. Julie Doan and Christie Walsh really made it clear in regard to the Biblical teachings of the Bible, the negative effects of gaming in regards to the cognitive function and the disorders that follow. It has moved me to take gaming and its effects more seriously and helped me recognize these effects in my younger family. I would recommend this book to not only clinicians, but parents and Christians alike. It is a good read for the mind and soul. – Anthony Phan, M.D.
Never before in our culture has there been an issue that has gained so much power and control over the futures of our children. Gaming and social media addictions are sneaking into the front doors of our homes right past our parents and captivating our children. Our children’s screens are prematurely removing our youth from the God given blessing of the real world, taking them off the ball fields, away from healthy relationships and away from the foundations of their family attachments that are critical to their healthy development. This workbook is a much needed resource for the many parents, churches, and educators who recognize how screens are changing our kids brains right in front of our eyes, and are taking seriously the critical, but sometimes overwhelming responsibility, to better shepherd the next generation of children in a digital age that is constantly distracting them from realizing their God-given potential. – Melanie Hempe, Founder, Families Managing Media
