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Sunday, September 9, 2018
Hundreds heed EV moms’ campaign to curb kids on social media
INSIDE
This Week
BY JIM WALSH GSN Staff Writer
4
NEWS................................ Aimee Rigler is ready to take her fight for taxpayers to council chambers.
COMMUNITY .............15 A Gilbert teen has been given Girl Scouts' highest honor.
SPORTS......................... 24 Perry High School badminton players are coming up with surprising wins.
COMMUNITY................. 15 BUSINESS .....................20 OPINION ....................... 23 SPORTS ......................... 24 GETOUT ........................ 26 CLASSIFIED .................. 32
W
hat started as a Thanksgiving hike became a movement to help parents push back against the digital tide of social media and learn how to control it so that it does not damage their children or their families. Two East Valley women casually discussing social media last year during a family hike at Usery Pass in northeast Mesa decided their children were too young for smartphones. Hillary Whalen of Gilbert and Jesika Harmon, then of Mesa, did more than just talk. They researched how obsessive use of social media can isolate teens, expose them to bullying and lead to depression. “We couldn’t sit back and do nothing. We had
to do something about it,’’ Whalen said. Whalen and Harmon founded The New Norm, a nonprofit corporation that has put on two workshops in Gilbert. The heavy turnout at the workshops indicates that The New Norm is reaching parents who feel overwhelmed by their children’s use of social media as society changes with the evolution of technology. Some 600 parents turned out in May for the first gathering at a charter school and 760 children and their parents attended a session last month at Gilbert’s Mesquite High School. Word about the latest event spread like wildfire on the internet, including the Gilbert Public Schools and Mesa Public Schools websites, proving that social media can be used for constructive purposes. The New Norm collaborated with Katie
McPherson, a Chandler education consultant who long has lectured parents about the dangers of social media and the need to achieve balance through a contract that doesn’t cut off kids from social media but does limit its use through a consistent plan. “People are more depressed, more anxious, more tired and less happy,’’ Whalen said. “Have you ever thought it might be the phone? “We need to learn to put technology in the proper place,’’ she added. “It’s knowing when enough is enough and being able to put that phone down.’’ The overwhelming message at The New Norm’s workshops is that teenagers – and adults, for that matter – can be much happier living a real life and going through real-life experiences,
see SOCIAL page 12
Gateway Airport now a pilot training hot spot BY JIM WALSH GSN Staff Writer
S
teve Armour always knew he wanted to fly, but it was hard to shell out thousands of dollars for flight training when the market for pilots crashed during the Great Recession. Armour, 43, went on with his life, managing a business until the high demand for pilots motivated him to take to the skies again. Now, Armour is one of hundreds of would-be pilots from around the nation and world drawn by ideal conditions to flight training schools at Phoenix Mesa Gateway Airport. While the average person might look at Gateway, on the eastern fringe of Mesa, as a
see GATEWAY page 10
(Kimberly Carrillo/GSN Saff Photographer)
Student pilots Dakota Lawry, left, and Collin Landwehr, sit in a cockpit simulator to get the feel of what it’s like to operate a commercial airplane and learn the complex control panel.