2025 Bein Hazmanim Program. Learn More >

The Rules

Activities that COUNT as VE screen time:

  • Any television/ streaming
  • Any video game (aside for Chess – However blitz and bullet mode do count towards screen time)
  • Any scrolling (such as through news feeds)
  • Web surfing (exception being for a productive purpose, such as shopping for needed items)
  • Social media (Including WhatsApp status and channels)

Activities that DO NOT COUNT as VE screen time:​

  • Calls
  • Texting
  • Facetime
  • Email
  • Learning
  • Doing any productive work (school or business)
  • Learning a skill
  • Listening to any media (even if it takes screentime to get to it)

Sports

All commercials count as screen time which cannot be erased.

Red-Zone is full-on screen time and cannot be erased with learning.

Watching Without Friends

If you are NOT watching with other people, you may use extra learning time (during that cycle) to erase the time spent watching sports at a 1:1 ratio. (E.g. If you watched for 2 hours by yourself, then you can learn for 2 hours outside of seder and take off the time watched from you cycle.)

Watching With Friends

If you are watching with other people (to be used as a bonding experience) you may use extra learning time (during that cycle) to erase the time spent watching sports at a 2:1 ratio (E.g. If you watched for 2 hours with friends, one can then learn 1 hour outside of seder and not count that as time at all.)