Set Your Child Up for Success With These Screen Time Facts
By Movieguide® Staff
Kids today are bombarded with screens, and parents play a key role in helping them develop a good relationship with technology.
The amount of screen time a child is allowed impacts their relationship with their parents, how they learn about the world and their physical health.
Current evidence shows that excessive screen time for young people is linked to physical issues including myopia, poor eyesight, anxiety, lower cognitive function, increased risk of heart disease and slower speech development. But its addictive power can influence a child’s beliefs as well.
With so many concerns stacked up against screen time, how can parents manage their role with responsibility and grace? And how can we ensure we are seeing the facts through an accurate lens? Let’s take a look at the positives and negatives of screen time for children.
THE HARM
Much of the modern concern around screen time is centered on social media, more so than movies and TV shows.
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt states in the documentary THE SOCIAL DILEMMA that “The number of teenage girls out of 100,000 [in the US] who were admitted to a hospital every year because they cut themselves or otherwise harmed themselves, that number was pretty stable until around 2010 / 2011, and then it [began] going way up.”
“It’s up 62% for older teen girls; it’s up 189% for the pre-teen girls. And [this] pattern points to social media,” he explains. “Gen Z, the kids born after 1996 or so, those kids are the first generation in history that got on social media in middle school.”
Dr. Yalda T. Uhls, the founder of the UCLA Center for Scholars & Storytellers, says, “Kids are getting these tools right when they have the least capability of actually controlling their behavior…That prefrontal cortex hasn’t developed enough for them to be able to put it down.”
The negative data circulating around screen time and social media is also generating concern for what kind of people our children will be when they become adults, especially after their brains have developed through circumstances never before experienced by past generations.
“They also get trained in instant gratification by these devices, and there’s something very dangerous about that because in real life we don’t get everything that we want instantly,” Randima Fernando, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, says of the dangers of screen time.
THE BENEFITS
However, in light of an avalanche of negative news regarding screen time, we must temper our perspective with knowledge of its benefits.
Whether we like it or not, the function of media, social media and content communicated via screens are pillars of our modern society, and the conversation must revolve around adapting to it rather than divorcing ourselves from it.
Trying to eliminate it from our children’s lives could create a belief in them that we do not care about their integration into their community or their social status as soon-to-be adults.
“… Research has found that [3-5 year olds] can learn from slow-paced, thoughtfully designed children’s media,” the American Psychological Association said in June 2022.
“For example, in tests of prereading skills such as alphabet recognition and letter sounds, kids who were randomly assigned to watch a 20-episode run of the literacy show SUPER WHY! outperformed kids who were assigned to watch an educational science series…Television’s educational potential isn’t limited to academic skills: A study of the PBS show DANIEL TIGER’S NEIGHBORHOOD led by Texas Tech University media researcher Eric Rasmussen, PhD, found that kids who were randomly assigned to watch the program showed greater emotion recognition, empathy and self-efficacy,” the APA added.
Jerri Lynn Hogg, a media psychologist at Fielding Graduate University, cautions us to not jump to too many conclusions about the impact of screentime on children: “As psychologists, it’s really important for us to have scientific-based evidence behind what we’re recommending. We’re not there yet. We have ideas, but the problem is that the technology is getting more and more sophisticated and more ubiquitous.”
PRACTICAL TIPS
How can you manage your child’s screen time, protecting them from the dangers while also teaching them how to use it properly? The parenting advice website Momtastic suggests the following five approaches:
- Set Screen Time Limits: Establish clear and consistent screen time limits for different activities, such as TV, video games and social media. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children aged 2 to 5 years should have no more than one hour of high-quality screen time per day, and children under 18 months should avoid screen time altogether.
- Create Screen-Free Zones: Designate specific areas in your home, such as the dining room or bedrooms, where screens are not allowed. This helps prevent screens from intruding on family time and sleep.
- Be a Role Model: Children often emulate the behavior of adults. If you want your child to spend less time on screens, be a positive role model by reducing your own screen time and engaging in non-screen activities.
- Provide Alternative Activities: Encourage your child to engage in alternative activities like reading, outdoor play, creative arts and crafts or board games. Make these activities readily available and appealing.
- Plan Screen Time: Instead of allowing unrestricted screen access, plan screen time as a part of your child’s daily routine. Set specific times for screen use, such as after homework or chores are completed.
Movieguide® recently reported on how you can help your child manage their screen time:
The American Academy of Pediatrics recently outlined new guidance to help parents manage their child’s screen time.
“It poses five essential questions and calls them the five C’s,” the TODAY show reported.
The five C’s include:
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Child: Who is your child?
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Content: What is worth the attention of your child?
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Calm: How do kids manage their emotions, especially around bedtime?
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Crowding Out: What does social media get in the way of?
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Communication: How can you talk to your kids and build healthier relationships with their devices?
Regardless of your perspective, approaching the dilemma of our children’s screen time requires education of the issues at hand, wisdom and discernment, empathy regarding its social relevance to our children and, overall, a great degree of prayerful consideration for our plan of response. Screens and social media are here to stay, but guiding children in their relationship with it is the best way forward.
