I really wish this was discussed more often. As a parent, I am constantly bombarded with people telling me I should limit my kids' "screen time."
Generational skepticism of new technology is played out. Can we move on yet?
Generational skepticism of new technology is played out. Can we move on yet?
Screen time for us was playing games with an educational value and watching TV with at least some educational value.
Recently we've started letting the five year old watch TV purely for entertainment, and the three year old sometimes watches too, but even then, both of them suddenly got a lot better at storytelling and coming up with their own original stories.
So even "pure entertainment" seems to have educational value for the kids.
The rule in our house is that you can't use a screen if the sun is up unless it's a weekend. That seems to be a good balance (although under the current conditions that's flexible if the screen is for an online class).
> The rule in our house is that you can't use a screen if the sun is up unless it's a weekend
I think that's actually limiting screentime more than most US households, you aren't actually on the "no need to limit screentime" side at all!
So they actually get a lot more screen time than most of their peers.
Given he's happy I'm not rocking that boat.
Turns out not every kid loves mornings!
Our kids, who are home with us and in the same room as where both me and my wife work, are able to play by themselves for the most part every weekday from 9-12pm.
Schadenfreude on that one.
Moreover, maybe both sides are right? Maybe you need heavy "screen interaction" to be successful in this world and maybe too much time is being consumed by screens rather than physically interacting with the world. Maybe there is a balance that isn't close to being struck by most.
Maybe I would like my future children (if I have them) to interpret the world largely through their own eyes rather than a clickbait interpretation manufactured to get more money.
When using the tablet they are playing educational games about sorting/identifying shapes and colors, painting by numbers, solving puzzles, etc.
Or watching/listening to songs that are teaching them colors, numbers, letters, etc. And dancing around because they like the music.
These are drilling home lessons in a fun and repetitive way that we simply could not do for our child otherwise. And we've seen educational jumps from it too.
Plus, let's be real, I make my living through a screen. So why is "screen time" stigmatized as a bad thing?
I've come to the realization that screens are not an evil thing to be minimized at all costs. They are the most powerful tool of the modern age.
It's just important to get some exercise and fresh air too.
Some apps just seem predatory.
Because then there's a hope that they'll actually learn the underlying principle and make similar decisions in situations where someone else is not directly in control of their behavior.
There are kids who don't get to eat ice cream before dinner at home because that's the rule, who will happily do so when over at someone else's house without their parents around to enforce that rule. Then there are kids who actually understand why they shouldn't eat ice cream before dinner, who will decline to do so even if they have the opportunity. (That doesn't mean they'll exercise perfect judgment every time, but then, there's also no guarantee they'll follow rules that aren't being enforced.)
It's important to develop the critical thinking skills to filter out "junk food" content.
(To clarify: I'm not talking about children too young to understand the concept, I'm talking about children more than old enough to make such decisions in an informed way. Roughly speaking, think 12, not 3.)
Sure, I agree with you. Limit what they have access to while using the screen, but not the actual screen time.
Somewhat analogous to the difference between limiting junk food from kids' diets vs. making them go full vegan and doing intermittent fasting.
I agree with the sentiment, but an important point is not the forget that behind the curtains there is an army of product managers, AI PhDs and tons of data running a version of Truman Show on each one of us. Usually "you're the product" is blended with "you're consuming the product that adds value". For example, you can search and land to a video to watch something educational, but opaque recommendation algorithms, un-turn-offable autoplays, nagging notifications and whatnot will try to convince you like an optimally-annoying salesman to stay just a little more and pay them in attention and ad revenue, or get you those dopamine hits so that you will want to come back to "just check" the app in a pavlovian fashion.
Whenever you or your kid interact with a screen, you are potentially interacting not only with a machinery with inherent information asymmetry but also one that we train every day exactly how much abuse we are willing to take. For further reading see Tristan Harris and the design ethics questions he brings into light.
Oh boy are they ever. We spend a lot of time curating the kids' screen time. We try every app first.
Youtube Kids is banned. Youtube's AI sucks at vetting content and they refuse to put humans on the job.
The apps from PBS are all gold. Disney+ has so for proven to be good at making sure all the content is kid appropriate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjKmQwhSk1s
It's not exactly a playlist, but you can hand select content.
Edit: I watched the video. I’ll have another look on the app tomorrow but I’m pretty sure that video does what I’m complaining about. The catalogue is pitiful. I just want access to all of YouTube. It’s not a big ask but they won’t make $$ off of Showing adult videos to kids so they won’t offer that.
One of my kids thrives on screen time because she actively seeks out creative and informative non-passive activities. She is in control of her technology usage rather than the other way around. And even though we keep tabs on her, we trust her completely to manage her own time.
The other gets limited screen time because if we don't put strict limits on it, he has absolutely immense self-control issues. He throws temper tantrums, claims to be bored all the time, picks arguments with others, refuses to follow simple instructions, and won't stay in bed for anything at bed time. Put simply: he displays all the hallmarks of chemical addiction with even a moderate amount of daily screen time. All of this is greatly decreased and comes very close to being a model citizen when we reduce his screen time down to only that which is required for his school work.
And somewhere in there is the fact that human adolescent brains were not designed by evolution to sit indoors all day look at screens or books.
But for those observations, is the problem the screen or what is on the screen? As a society, I'd like us to focus less on the former and more on the latter.
A screen is just a window that become anything, and I don't see why it should be inherently more or less educative than any other experience.
Let's say in the future we get perfect VR headsets that can perfectly replicate every sense. Would the conversation be different?
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'.
Some parents also think you should be playing with your child at all times and that's absurd too. It's good for kids to learn how to entertain themselves and be creative as individuals. There's not much more obnoxious than kids who grew up with their parents always playing with them or managing their attention and the kids complain about being bored.
It seems to me that the recipe for that ideal self-sufficient-loving-smart-social-over-achieving kids that all parents seem to want to have is sort of a pipe dream, and it always has been, just environment changed. We all want them, but few will end up being one and its often not that much a fault of a parent.
Plenty of love, plenty of time together, some time alone, some with others, well-managed discipline seems like a good start. I would add some traveling and exposure to foreign, exotic cultures. One can't avoid screen time these days, I mean if I want to show my kid to parents during Covid, it has to be via webcam. But passive aimless consumption isn't one for me, and for sure it won't be for my kids. I'll rather put them into rock climbing course.
What happened to topics about billionaires forbidding the access to phones & TV to their kids before age of 7?
Creating/creative/thinking time spent on a screen is very different than passive consuming time.
Is it, though? Spending lots of time in front of a TV is still considered harmful as it was half a century ago.