"screen time" is so general though. What were they doing on the screens?
Sure, I know plenty of parents who stick their kids on YouTube with no monitoring, who end up watching Jake Paul for hours.
But I also know plenty of parents whose kids spend their screen time drawing in paint apps, playing with redstone creations in Minecraft, and generally doing stuff that I (as a parent of 2 who aren't quite that age yet) would LOVE my kids to be doing.
I'm sure the former is more common than the latter, but I wish articles like this weren't so "screen time is BAD" and would differentiate and encourage parents to instead push their kids towards educational-but-entertaining screentime.
If I hadn't spent my entire childhood on screens learning to code in BASIC and playing in Paint, I wouldn't have had my career, which has now let me support my family and give them a comfortable life (whereas I grew up in poverty).
That's my main problem with all this "screen time is bad" stuff.
There's a huge difference between a kid spending 2 hours playing Flappy Bird and spending 2 hours playing with an educational app, or drawing/painting in an app, or watching tutorials on YouTube.
It's like saying "time at the park is bad for you" because some kids go to the park to smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol.
Screen time isn't bad for kids. Parents not controlling what kids DO on the screens is bad for kids. It's all just another convenient thing for parents to point at and blame for their lazy parenting.
Moderate what your kids do, push them towards using screens and technology in educational and beneficial ways that stimulate their imagination and creativity, control the amount of time they spend sedentary, and teach them that like all things in life, balance and variety are important.
(Parent of 2 kids, who get unlimited access to TV, game consoles, and a tablet, and would much rather play Lego)
Well, I agree that the issue needs careful examination. Not all screen time is created equal. That said, to an average person, screen time does not really equal educational applications, writing code or even reading. Instead, to most, it tends to mean Facebook, Netflix, Youtube, and increasingly creepier games designed to suck you in and bleed you( or your parents ) dry.
I am saying this as an expecting parent. My parents were raised without TV and there is a clear difference on how they processed the information presented to them. Heavens know I do not process it the same way what with being basically raised on internet and tv.
In short, I do not think we should move on. I think it is worthwhile to ask more nuanced questions than 'is screen time bad-discuss'.
I'm concerned about my kids screen time, but I'm also concerned that there seems to be an "anti-screen-time" cult that is operating on virtually no evidence, yet insists that any form of time with "screens" is bad. Some of the computer games that my kids play are some of the most cognitively complex and creative things they do. For one example, Minecraft, has simply no equivalent "real world" activity that it can be compared to.
The problem with blindly saying all screen time is bad is that it actually prevents us talking about what is good and what is bad about it, and therefore actually impedes progress. As a result, we have almost no guidance to either parents or app developers about what constitutes "good" content, which actually results in more "bad" content and more kids being exposed to "bad" content because parents are just operating in a complete blind spot where they let their kids have small amounts of "screen time" during which they can do anything.
It's like saying "I limit my children's tobacco time to 1 hour per day" - which is ludicrous but that is exactly what being promoted currently as "good practise" for parents to follow.
I'd say that "screen time" is just a convenient categorization since, for the most part, kids are so drawn to addictive and arguably low-value content that once those things are off, there is no interest in the screen. I've given unlimited time to my kids for more learning-centric stuff, but they hardly use it.
I can tell you if my kids were coding, making music, reading, or otherwise engaged in something more productive with their screens, I'd absolutely whitelist those apps for much more time. But it is, sadly, more YT Kids shit, Roblox nonsense, etc.
The way we treat screentime these days feels like a strange continuation of the way it was treated for those of us who were kids in the early 2000s even though the world has changed significantly since then.
I remember that back then schools and TV shows were all pushing this idea that all screen time was harmful for kids and to not let them have more than an hour or two a day.
It may have made some more sense than nowadays since CRTs were more common back then and seemed to strain the eyes more, but the lack of differentiation between actually productive screen time and plain old replaceable entertainment caused a ton of friction in my family as I was growing up.
In comparison, with my currently 5 year old niece and 1 year old nephew (more visible in the niece of course), having access to productive screen time has been pretty impressive for her development, with her having learned the alphabet, developed a decent vocabulary, learned addition enough to even reason about numbers for which she hadn't memorized the answer, and even picking up on some multiplication, all before starting school.
It's hard to generalize too much about screen time. It is almost universally bad, especially for kids, and should be kept to a minimum. Gadgets nowadays provide an unlimited stream of stimulation, novelty, and dopamine hits. No child can resist that, which is why the "lesser evils" like education apps are still "gamified" to have any chance of keeping a kid's attention. The result is that kids from an early age are growing up addicted to dopamine and the internet. It's not much different from fat kids already being addicted to junk food from an early age, it's just not as visible -- and both situations will be very difficult to change during the individual's life.
Really, you just have to spend some time with the current generation of children to see how disastrous technology has been. Their brain chemistry depends on constant outside stimulation, and anything else is boring.
Also, if you think you can effectively police what your kids do and see on the internet, you are sorely mistaken.
An anecdote from the flip side, our three kids have had very extensive access to screens since they’ve been able to use them, none of them have bad screen habits. They all happily put them down to play with anything else that seems interesting.
Our working theory is that by not making screen time precious, we’ve made screens just another toy/tool/way to accomplish something, rather than something to be sought out for their own sake.
I could talk about this for hours, but "screen time" is too vague - placing a kid in front of a youtube autoplay stream is vastly different than playing a word game on the iPad with their parents right next to them.
I've found low effort, high stimulus creates bad behaviour, which is obvious. But specifically, it creates a low effort flow state, setting false expectations about life in general, and parents should make sure to minimize this kind of media.
However we found a few good apps, and both my kids knew the alphabet before 1 year old, and my 2 year old is drawing Chinese characters (he's spent 1/4th of his life in China) thanks to good apps, and having parents present while using them.
And passive media isn't all bad, How Things Work and David Attenborough, and anything space related has taught my kids a lot.
I wish more studies would not focus on "book time" vs "screen time", because what's really important is interactivity, such as being present with your child for them to bounce things off you, or apps that give small rewards for high effort tasks, rather than large rewards for low effort tasks - it just so happens that books are more conducive to this, but if you actually pay attention to what your child is doing, screens can be a powerful tool.
That being said, it's really tough being a parent, and sometimes you just want to put some high stimulus thing on the screen to get a break - in my experience, it's only bad when that becomes a habit or norm.
We continue to have a moral panic about screentime. There is no debating that it has continued to get worse and not better. The same kids who were addicted to WoW(or other games) or learning to code in their spare time are doing the same thing today, just longer.
Involved parents are not just helicopter parents. An involved parent might have gone through a similar generational experience where they were ignored by their parents and put in front of the radio, television, computer, etc and want to break the generational cycle with their kids. Because substituting healthy activities for screentime is a good way to model independent behavior and bring balance to your life. It doesn't mean you cannot use screens, but rather that you use them in moderation.
The difference of opinion changes when you become a parent too. You start to reflect on your childhood and things you wish were different while trying your best to bring more real experiences to your kids instead of them trying to explore the world virtually.
"Screen time" is just the term that most people use for "use of technology", in this case TV, and other computer tech (tablets, desktops, phones). What they are really talking about is the applications or "services" the kids are addicted to staring at and using by way of the screens.
> Screens are not inherently bad, or good, or anything anymore than a window is bad or good.
Once you understand it's not really the screens as such, but the things the kids are looking at by way of the screens, then the value neutral claim kind of falls apart because the things the kids are looking at by way of the screens are made to be addictive and optimized to an absurd degree for that effect of habit formation. Tech companies have been on a decades long move to remove the concept of "just a screen", an obvious example being TVs which are now all "smart". Seeing as we know that habit formation is easier to bring about in children (their habits and behaviour as children defined by their plastic nature at that age) it's within reason to be worried that an industry and parenting practice is essentially enabling intense habit formation in children for material gain.
I wouldn't let imprecise language get in the way of the main issue: is addiction to certain services and technology something we want for our children? The fact that tech execs have decided "no" seems to be ironic considering they have no problem with other children doing it.
My 10yo and 6yo rarely get screen time and when they do it's for something productive and not mind numbing like gaming or Youtube. Every day that goes by with them being relatively screen-free is a win in my book. They get to be kids - lots of activity outside the house and lots of creativity inside, music, acting, painting. It's hard though as most of their classmates are screen zombies. I just don't understand how most parents don't see this so clearly.
You're going to get a lot of skewed results here, because a lot of parents aren't going to feel comfortable telling the truth: that almost all parents allow a reasonable amount of screen time to their kids, even if they know it's not the healthiest thing for them.
Personally, we have a four year old and an almost-two year old, and they're watching a Leapfrog show on the TV as we speak. We limit their access to screens, but realistically there are times when they're really useful.
I'm a parent too, I make time so that my child has stimulating activities even if its not my fave.
Frankly I have a great time watching my child learn and explore.
My kid isn't that old, but I got them a robot that they can "program" from their iPad, its solid learning and exploration time.
I think we need to differentiate between "zero value screen time" and "learning screen time" before we make any real judgements about it.
I'm an elementary educator, and the distinction I always try to make for parents is between "low effort, low reward" screen time and "high effort, high reward."
Mindlessly scrolling through YouTube is a low effort activity, which is why so many of us (myself included) do it more than we really ought to. Clearly spending some quality time learning a skill, coding, or engaging in some creative affair is clearly superior, even though they could both be characterized as "screen time."
The one thing I alert to them, though, is just how much firepower there is in tuning the experience so meticulously to encourage their children to spend an extra minute or two on these apps. And this, I tell them, is the real danger. Not so much the content, but it essentially is a tool that is rewarding their kid for not much intellectual effort at all.
When I wanted to not be bored as a kid, I had to put some effort into it: take out my toys, create a story line, put things away, etc. Most of the kids I teach today have no idea what that split-second of boredom really feels like: they just whip out their phone and that's it. That, to me, is the real danger.
The kids who are taught to stave off that immediate (but cheap) gratification and instead use the wealth of tech we have today for more productive uses are going to have a huge eg up on the ones who don't.
Anecdotally, we don't exactly practice moderation with screen time, and we've been constantly surprised at how much our kids learn from even the crappy alphabet/number/animals/shapes videos on YouTube Kids. We're also not big into milestones, but our kids have absolutely flown past every educational milestone for their ages. We are very present, attentive parents with above average education, but we spend (what we think is) an unexceptional amount of time teaching them things, and they have learned an exceptional amount.
What's funny is that everyone just assumes the screen time is bad, and that our kids are naturally very smart (with the implicit suggestion that they'd know more without screen time). That may be true, but it isn't borne out by observation in our case.
We've found a lot of parenting is like that - people are pretty sure about what's good and bad, and the child's behavior/response one way or the other is either expected or a fluke, depending on what confirms assumptions about what's good and bad.
Our oldest is only 7, but we have 4 and we've noticed no ill effects from screen time, the kids are all social, they love to go to the park and play with friends (which we don't get to do nearly enough now...), to go for walks and ride bikes, in short they all seem well within the bounds of "normal" development for their ages.
It typically takes a lot of parental involvement for kids to use screen to learn something or build something rather then watch entertaining videos or play fortnite from the moment they wake up till they go to sleep.
Almost every child that uses a screen is just using it to consume. Yes in theory it is simplistic to say "screen time bad", not everything needs to be a super detailed, super nuanced discussion all the time.
Greater screen time at that age is indicative of parents without the time or interest or skills to do anything else with the kid which probably knocks on to all other aspects of said kids life.
Sure, I know plenty of parents who stick their kids on YouTube with no monitoring, who end up watching Jake Paul for hours.
But I also know plenty of parents whose kids spend their screen time drawing in paint apps, playing with redstone creations in Minecraft, and generally doing stuff that I (as a parent of 2 who aren't quite that age yet) would LOVE my kids to be doing.
I'm sure the former is more common than the latter, but I wish articles like this weren't so "screen time is BAD" and would differentiate and encourage parents to instead push their kids towards educational-but-entertaining screentime.
If I hadn't spent my entire childhood on screens learning to code in BASIC and playing in Paint, I wouldn't have had my career, which has now let me support my family and give them a comfortable life (whereas I grew up in poverty).
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