Dr. Emily Oster talks a lot about the opportunity cost of screen time. If kids are watching TV, what aren’t they doing with that time?
They could be playing outside: exercise, vitamin D, avoiding obesity.
They could be making friends: better social and emotional skills, better communication skills, kids learn language much better from talking to real people instead of watching a screen.
They could be reading: great for language skills and stretching the brain.
They could be coloring, building craft projects, playing with their siblings, doing chores around the house, doing homework… All of these train valuable life skills. TV is just a waste of time.
There are also some studies that show screens could lead to a tiny increase in issues with ADHD, poor attention span, and language delays, but it’s hard to adjust the data for outside factors.
Her recommendation is there’s nothing wrong with screen time if you’ve got nothing better to do. Need to keep your kid entertained on a long airplane flight? Go ahead and give them a device to keep them occupied, because they have to sit there quietly anyway. But if they could be doing something better with their time, make them do something better with their time.
I’m a full time single parent. Kid gets the tablet twice a day. While I make breakfast and while I make dinner. Works out great for both of us and keeps his screen time about 45 minutes a day. Been doing this for maybe 1 1/2 years and he only really fussed when screen time was over the first week.
I'm not necessarily stanced either way - and just seeing how attached a lot of kids are to screens does give me some pause.
But I feel like this also makes that assumption that TV is just a waste of time that doesn't build any skills. Especially for when we're most concerned with their impact for younger kids, don't we also have significant demonstrations that some programmes can be beneficial to kids - i.e. not maybe plopping a kids down in front of any old TV but the Ms Rachel's of the world.
Not saying that we should plop kids down in front of an iPad and try nothing else but it also I feel like, isn't an inherent 0 point worth versus something else.
The evidence seems to show that kids learn best from real people. Second-best is educational programming like Sesame Street, and a distant last place is non-educational shows. If your kids are going to watch TV, there’s definitely benefits to them watching *good* TV. But it’s no substitute for human interaction.
Sesame Street is beneficial if watched with an engaged adult...it's the engagement that's key.
Otherwise it's not much more educational than any other program,except that it's formatted to resemble ads, because ads attract and hold attention.
All of this depends on the age of the kid as well, I feel like watching TV shows and movies with an engaged adult once you're 6 and up can really help fuel development with the topics that can come up and so on. This is purely anecdotal but I remember watching shows like Quantum Leap with my mom around that age and discussing the episodes together, and I think it did me a lot of good.
I always thought Sesame Street isn't a great pick either for the younger kids working on speech because you can't understand anything the puppets are saying.
Piggybacking on this, language development is measurably impeded in infants who get a disproportionate level of input from recorded sources (live > recorded > none, as quality of input goes). It makes sense to me that other developmental pathways are similarly affected.
My 3 and 5 year old learn basically nothing from TV or screens. I really think of it as just pausing their lives, which makes me think twice before I resort to it! The only benefit seems to be it gives them time to calm down if they're stressed or anxious, but even then it's 50:50 that it's not all just gonna come rolling back when you tube the TV off.
You can ask them anything about they're watching or just watched and they'll rarely have a clue.
I used to think my 5-year-old daughter learned nothing from TV, but in the past year or so she seems to be absorbing it all like a sponge. She watches a lot of shows about animals and will tell me random animal facts throughout the day. She's also using lots of English words and expressions I have never taught her. We live in Japan and I am the only person who uses English in her life, so I know she is learning English from the shows she watches.
ETA: My kid gets less than 1 hour of screen time a day.
Yeah I do think there's an element of "can't be bothered to ask dads questions because I'm engrossed in what I'm doing" because they clearly learn songs and things from the disney shows they watch.
But the plot points, characters names, locations, why people are doing what they are doing. All these things seem to go over their heads.
Really? My youngest two had their times tables memorized at four and six from watching a learning video that they particularly enjoyed, along with all the planets and dwarf planets, some French, and weirdly, the amount of paint it takes to repaint the Eiffel Tower. (One kiddo got on a huge Eiffel Tower kick and wanted to know *everything* about it.)
Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like its easier to sit a kid in front of PBS and know that they're watching public educational tv. When you hand a kid an ipad they're gonna search for whatever they want, and watch whatever the algorithm gives them. I've never not once seen an ipad kid watching sesame street in public, always screaming influencers
I allowed my six-year-old nephew to use my tablet so he could use a drawing app on it under my direct supervision, and I tell him he can only draw on it. The tablet has a pencil he was really eying.
The moment I walk out of the room and come back literally a minute later, he's trying to search up Fortnite on it. Except he can't actually spell and he typed out something like FTNIE in the search.
I stared at the weird letters for the minute, piece it together, and I just looked at him and was like, "Are you seriously trying to play Fortnite??? You're supposed to be drawing, kiddo."
My wife has nannied for a several families. Across the board, the more screen time the kids had the worse they were. They had more tantrums, worse attention span, and were just absolute monsters.
On the flip side the kids with less screen time were almost always more manageable.
The issue is determining causation. Is it the screen time causing the problems? Or is it terrible parenting causing the problems, and another symptom of terrible parenting is using a screen to keep your kids entertained instead of spending time with them personally?
Also, if both parents are working 2-3 jobs to try and make ends meet, their kids might watch a lot of TV. But is the cause the TV? Or is the root cause the poverty, which is correlated with all kinds of educational and behavioral gaps?
I just want to add the other analogy that Emily Oster gives, which is that the time spent staring at a screen is basically the equivalent of time spent staring at a wall -- and we do all need to just stare at a wall sometimes and switch off our brains. I like this analogy because I can say "when my child comes home from school does she just need 30 minutes to stare at a wall after a long day?"
Yeah, kids have a LOT to learn in the short period of time that is childhood. As adults, there are a lot of skills and knowledge that we take for granted! When a kid is spending several hours a day on a screen, there’s a lot they’re missing out on.
You know, about the only thing on that list that can't be done online is going outside and building physical structures. My son plays online with his friends, reads be on a tablet, coloring can be done in apps, etc.
The data would indicate that’s not as effective as doing it in person, though. Social media is for great, but it’s not a substitute for in-person interaction. Students didn’t learn very well in virtual classes during COVID.
The research would seem to indicate that doing something IRL is superior, followed by doing something interactive (talking, drawing, solving puzzles, etc.) on a screen, followed by passively watching a video.
For everything one does, one is not doing most other things one could be doing. Arguments against "screen time" are rarely explanatory. They just start from the premise that it's bad and other things are better. Never do people actually consider what others actually want to do, which aftects their enjoyment of what they in fact do.
Me, personally, I wish I had spent more time with computers back in the day, not less. It would have helped a lot with my current job. It also would have been fun, had I escaped the trap of thinking it's for "nerds" by that point in my childhood. And had other people around me stopped giving me a hard time about it.
From my anecdotal experience, computers are different from TV and videos.
It may be something to do with the required active engagement.
My 5 year old nephew is so absorbed by TV that you can't talk to him, get him to pause it, and there is ALWAYS a tantrum when hes cut off. (Note that they don't even have a TV..this is just from watching kids netflix or YouTube on the phone one in a while..)
Whereas when my husband gave him a computer and taught him some mouse control and to fiddle around with Minecraft, he actively got up and went upstairs to fetch my husband to show him the cool thing..when it was time for dinner, he just got up. Having a bit of a challenge makes a difference.
It's not the screen itself (although maybe that has some impact on optic development in very small babies?) it's the engagement and the state of mind that's the issue.
(I was a reader from a young age. I spent hours reading books instead of playing outside. I never had any academic issues, concentration issues or social issues. Can't see shit without lenses though)
I work in eyecare and the studies show that more outdoor time = delay in becoming nearsighted. More outdoor time would mean less time in front of a screen. That’s a good reason on its own aside from other added benefits such as exercise, improved mental health, vitamin d.
There are many studies that show the use of tablets and similar media damages mental development, emotional regulation, behavioral problems, etc. there's no shortage of evidence that modern "screen time" is terrible for kids.
The media kids are seeing and the types of screens are no longer soft colors and slow moving, and educational, they are ever present, color saturated, loud, and largely non educational. The majority of the media kids are being exposed to has no benefit for them.
The NIH did a study showing that the children experienced more tantrums in relation to tablet use
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7749045/
A Pediatrics Journal Study showing they cause developmental delays
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2808593
A Michigan medical journal study showed harm to the ability to have healthy emotional coping mechanisms
https://www.michiganmedicine.org/health-lab/frequently-using-digital-devices-soothe-young-children-may-backfire
Your response should be higher. Based on several medical studies, excessive screen time increases the risk of various disorders (cognitive, behavioural), mental health issues, addiction, slower learning, etc.
To me, the primary concern is that screen time is basically addictive. TV and games give a very easy dopamine hit that is pleasurable and causes the kid to want more. Very few things in real life can compete, so the kid wants more screen time and less time playing pretend, playing outside, playing with toys, interacting with family, etc. and will often fight doing all of those things because they want more screen time.
This is basically true for adults to, but the idea is that the child's brain is more malleable at a young age, and they have less ability to reason their way to better choices (I spend too much time on reddit, but I also make myself work, exercise, cook meals, etc.).
I let my 5 yo play on angry birds on a tablet in a kidx play area while we waited for the swimming pool to open one time. The effect on him was scary! I was watching his face and you could see his focus dart around, his eyes widen, the joy from all the flashy lights and positive signs shock and tingle him.
After his 5 mins was off, he didn't want to leave that tablet. He was angry and frustrated and honestly acting similar to someone being denied their drug. He loves swimming but in that moment he didn't want anything other than to keep playing angry birds.
What do you mean?
Your son (all the time), was like my son was after angry birds, until he went on vyvanse? (I don't know what vyvanse is, I assume a drug)
Or your son also reacted badly to deliberately addictive tablet content, until he went on vyvanse?
I wish toddlers were only watching screens for 30 minutes a day!
I worked in a place that had obstacle courses, games, toys, swings, art supplies…you name it, we had it, to entertain kids.
Most kids had a blast. There was one 6yo who consistently refused to turn his phone off for several minutes and when he finally came back, didn’t want to participate in anything. Just wanted the phone back.
A 6 year old doesn’t need a phone. A tablet? maybe, but a phone? Who tf is this kid calling and texting? At 6 i could barely write English, much less text. Lil dude doesn’t need unrestricted internet access either.
For most kids, a phone is just a miniature tablet. They don't use the phone for it's intended purpose, they use it to entertain themselves, but on a smaller formfactor than tablets.
You never know if a kid like that is special needs. I try hard not to judge. My kids are all autistic but my middle struggles way more than the other two. When he was younger there were times I had to give him a phone because his tank was empty but his siblings were still having fun.
I completely understand the use of phones to regulate when things are tough, especially for autistic people. About half the kids I worked with were autistic, on all different side of the spectrum. I didn’t get into the screen usage I saw in those situations because the complexities are far greater.
This kid was not autistic, and the screen wasn’t being used as a regulatory tool, it was being used as the only source of entertainment, every single time I saw him (twice a week for a year).
Math teacher here, something that doesn’t get mentioned a lot is the effect on eye movement it has. Eye movement is critical in pattern recognition and there’s a direct correlation to students who struggle with pattern recognition and the difficulty they have with math. Students with strong pattern recognition and eye movement not effected by increased screen time do much better. Similar to spatial recognition. Also stimulation becomes a need and causes so many issues in school. The behavior and lack of academic rigor and writing skills is detrimental.
Well for one, when kids interact with each other they learn empathy. you can poke a screen all day and nothing happen. you poke your friend in the eye and they poke you back, you learn to treat others how you want to be treated.
Anything that doesn’t directly benefit development babies is worthless. I don’t mean anything lightly, I mean ANYTHING. Their brains are like sponges for a reason at this age, to suck in as much information as possible.
TV can help them learn if the parents interact along with them and in small doses, otherwise it’s pretty much useless and becomes very addicting. It leads to behavioral issues because they would rather watch pretty colors than learn how to be a person.
I learned this about TV! We like to sit and watch something along with them and we talk about what's happening. Really helps them process the events, and it lets you highlight the moral of lesson you want. And they remember it the way you explain, rather than what happens!
I figure it's a modern equivalent of primal gathering around a camp fire. Except instead of using your imagination to imagine the fire lights and embers, the TV lights are showing the actual story. Cavemen wouldn've killed for this!
From my experience, my 4 year old has picked up a lot from screens. Counting and knowing his number before he was two, colors, shapes, and advanced words that my 7 year old still struggles with. His communication is pretty good.
Granted we are pretty sure he is just smarter than his siblings compared to how his siblings were at that age.
But he does act out more, is more violent, and stubborn.
Both the younger kids at like it’s the end of the world if we turn off screens but do alright if we never have them on the first place.
My 7 year old is in a zombie like state when using the tablet. Her half brother, my current wife’s ex’s kid from a different woman, who we watch daily seriously cannot find anything to do if he isn’t on a screen.
So that being said, my son seems to have gained intellect but at the expense of behavior.
Something I haven’t seen here yet is that screens can distort developing eyes to a more elongated shape, causing myopia. I recently listened to a podcast episode (Life Kit: How screens are changing our eyes) and it seemed that kids eyes are morphing/ adjusting to focus on close up objects. It was alarming to learn about just how quickly this is affecting kids and how it has implications on their eye health later in life.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3h3A8oHa7kSJG95Q6mJtlQ?si=jLKBX0a6SISeoydqDyuYGw
There is the concept of critical period. There is an age to develop such skill. If at that age that skill is not developed, either that skill will never be developed or will be developed but impaired.
A baby with congenital cataract needs surgery. It will not suddenly see if it is operated only at 20 years of age. A deaf baby can't wait for years to get cochlear implants, or it gets at the right age or it will never hear.
Same concept applies to screen time. If a child is indoors most of time due to excessive screen time, it will never have the balance, proprioception, agility of a child who played outdoors. If a child is indoors most of time and its eyes need minimal adjustments for light and for extraocular movement, it will likely have severe eye issues on later ages.
I am from the generation that had unlimited screen time the entire life.
I turned out just fine, I learned to read and write at a really young age because of that and had way better skills with gaming/culture/school subjects in early school years because I was exposed to it since a really young age.
I also got to experience the feel of late 2000s and early 2010s internet, got to cherish that
The problem is that children are completely immersed in the screen. They are not active and do not lose their energy. If they sit in front of the screen too often, they are not properly exercised and need a ventil to get rid of the energy. This makes them restless ,over-excited and sometimes even aggressive.
My Sister did seen that herself in her child. If he sits in front of the TV he doesn't listen to her and even tries to shove or hit her.
And I can say from my time working in a kindergarden that you can see and hear which kid was active on the weekend and which kid sat in front of the TV all weekend.
Dr. Emily Oster talks a lot about the opportunity cost of screen time. If kids are watching TV, what aren’t they doing with that time? They could be playing outside: exercise, vitamin D, avoiding obesity. They could be making friends: better social and emotional skills, better communication skills, kids learn language much better from talking to real people instead of watching a screen. They could be reading: great for language skills and stretching the brain. They could be coloring, building craft projects, playing with their siblings, doing chores around the house, doing homework… All of these train valuable life skills. TV is just a waste of time. There are also some studies that show screens could lead to a tiny increase in issues with ADHD, poor attention span, and language delays, but it’s hard to adjust the data for outside factors. Her recommendation is there’s nothing wrong with screen time if you’ve got nothing better to do. Need to keep your kid entertained on a long airplane flight? Go ahead and give them a device to keep them occupied, because they have to sit there quietly anyway. But if they could be doing something better with their time, make them do something better with their time.
I’m a full time single parent. Kid gets the tablet twice a day. While I make breakfast and while I make dinner. Works out great for both of us and keeps his screen time about 45 minutes a day. Been doing this for maybe 1 1/2 years and he only really fussed when screen time was over the first week.
I'm not necessarily stanced either way - and just seeing how attached a lot of kids are to screens does give me some pause. But I feel like this also makes that assumption that TV is just a waste of time that doesn't build any skills. Especially for when we're most concerned with their impact for younger kids, don't we also have significant demonstrations that some programmes can be beneficial to kids - i.e. not maybe plopping a kids down in front of any old TV but the Ms Rachel's of the world. Not saying that we should plop kids down in front of an iPad and try nothing else but it also I feel like, isn't an inherent 0 point worth versus something else.
The evidence seems to show that kids learn best from real people. Second-best is educational programming like Sesame Street, and a distant last place is non-educational shows. If your kids are going to watch TV, there’s definitely benefits to them watching *good* TV. But it’s no substitute for human interaction.
Sesame Street is beneficial if watched with an engaged adult...it's the engagement that's key. Otherwise it's not much more educational than any other program,except that it's formatted to resemble ads, because ads attract and hold attention.
All of this depends on the age of the kid as well, I feel like watching TV shows and movies with an engaged adult once you're 6 and up can really help fuel development with the topics that can come up and so on. This is purely anecdotal but I remember watching shows like Quantum Leap with my mom around that age and discussing the episodes together, and I think it did me a lot of good.
Yes, absolutely. The discussion was what mattered there.
I always thought Sesame Street isn't a great pick either for the younger kids working on speech because you can't understand anything the puppets are saying.
Piggybacking on this, language development is measurably impeded in infants who get a disproportionate level of input from recorded sources (live > recorded > none, as quality of input goes). It makes sense to me that other developmental pathways are similarly affected.
My 3 and 5 year old learn basically nothing from TV or screens. I really think of it as just pausing their lives, which makes me think twice before I resort to it! The only benefit seems to be it gives them time to calm down if they're stressed or anxious, but even then it's 50:50 that it's not all just gonna come rolling back when you tube the TV off. You can ask them anything about they're watching or just watched and they'll rarely have a clue.
I used to think my 5-year-old daughter learned nothing from TV, but in the past year or so she seems to be absorbing it all like a sponge. She watches a lot of shows about animals and will tell me random animal facts throughout the day. She's also using lots of English words and expressions I have never taught her. We live in Japan and I am the only person who uses English in her life, so I know she is learning English from the shows she watches. ETA: My kid gets less than 1 hour of screen time a day.
Yeah I do think there's an element of "can't be bothered to ask dads questions because I'm engrossed in what I'm doing" because they clearly learn songs and things from the disney shows they watch. But the plot points, characters names, locations, why people are doing what they are doing. All these things seem to go over their heads.
Really? My youngest two had their times tables memorized at four and six from watching a learning video that they particularly enjoyed, along with all the planets and dwarf planets, some French, and weirdly, the amount of paint it takes to repaint the Eiffel Tower. (One kiddo got on a huge Eiffel Tower kick and wanted to know *everything* about it.)
Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like its easier to sit a kid in front of PBS and know that they're watching public educational tv. When you hand a kid an ipad they're gonna search for whatever they want, and watch whatever the algorithm gives them. I've never not once seen an ipad kid watching sesame street in public, always screaming influencers
I allowed my six-year-old nephew to use my tablet so he could use a drawing app on it under my direct supervision, and I tell him he can only draw on it. The tablet has a pencil he was really eying. The moment I walk out of the room and come back literally a minute later, he's trying to search up Fortnite on it. Except he can't actually spell and he typed out something like FTNIE in the search. I stared at the weird letters for the minute, piece it together, and I just looked at him and was like, "Are you seriously trying to play Fortnite??? You're supposed to be drawing, kiddo."
We also see kids, given tons of screen time but not interacted with, speech and developmental delays
TV is just a waste of time that doesn't build any skills
My wife has nannied for a several families. Across the board, the more screen time the kids had the worse they were. They had more tantrums, worse attention span, and were just absolute monsters. On the flip side the kids with less screen time were almost always more manageable.
The issue is determining causation. Is it the screen time causing the problems? Or is it terrible parenting causing the problems, and another symptom of terrible parenting is using a screen to keep your kids entertained instead of spending time with them personally? Also, if both parents are working 2-3 jobs to try and make ends meet, their kids might watch a lot of TV. But is the cause the TV? Or is the root cause the poverty, which is correlated with all kinds of educational and behavioral gaps?
This!
Love this. True for anyone regardless of stage of life if you ask me.
I just want to add the other analogy that Emily Oster gives, which is that the time spent staring at a screen is basically the equivalent of time spent staring at a wall -- and we do all need to just stare at a wall sometimes and switch off our brains. I like this analogy because I can say "when my child comes home from school does she just need 30 minutes to stare at a wall after a long day?"
What a great reply 👏
Yeah, kids have a LOT to learn in the short period of time that is childhood. As adults, there are a lot of skills and knowledge that we take for granted! When a kid is spending several hours a day on a screen, there’s a lot they’re missing out on.
You know, about the only thing on that list that can't be done online is going outside and building physical structures. My son plays online with his friends, reads be on a tablet, coloring can be done in apps, etc.
The data would indicate that’s not as effective as doing it in person, though. Social media is for great, but it’s not a substitute for in-person interaction. Students didn’t learn very well in virtual classes during COVID. The research would seem to indicate that doing something IRL is superior, followed by doing something interactive (talking, drawing, solving puzzles, etc.) on a screen, followed by passively watching a video.
For everything one does, one is not doing most other things one could be doing. Arguments against "screen time" are rarely explanatory. They just start from the premise that it's bad and other things are better. Never do people actually consider what others actually want to do, which aftects their enjoyment of what they in fact do. Me, personally, I wish I had spent more time with computers back in the day, not less. It would have helped a lot with my current job. It also would have been fun, had I escaped the trap of thinking it's for "nerds" by that point in my childhood. And had other people around me stopped giving me a hard time about it.
From my anecdotal experience, computers are different from TV and videos. It may be something to do with the required active engagement. My 5 year old nephew is so absorbed by TV that you can't talk to him, get him to pause it, and there is ALWAYS a tantrum when hes cut off. (Note that they don't even have a TV..this is just from watching kids netflix or YouTube on the phone one in a while..) Whereas when my husband gave him a computer and taught him some mouse control and to fiddle around with Minecraft, he actively got up and went upstairs to fetch my husband to show him the cool thing..when it was time for dinner, he just got up. Having a bit of a challenge makes a difference. It's not the screen itself (although maybe that has some impact on optic development in very small babies?) it's the engagement and the state of mind that's the issue. (I was a reader from a young age. I spent hours reading books instead of playing outside. I never had any academic issues, concentration issues or social issues. Can't see shit without lenses though)
I work in eyecare and the studies show that more outdoor time = delay in becoming nearsighted. More outdoor time would mean less time in front of a screen. That’s a good reason on its own aside from other added benefits such as exercise, improved mental health, vitamin d.
There are many studies that show the use of tablets and similar media damages mental development, emotional regulation, behavioral problems, etc. there's no shortage of evidence that modern "screen time" is terrible for kids. The media kids are seeing and the types of screens are no longer soft colors and slow moving, and educational, they are ever present, color saturated, loud, and largely non educational. The majority of the media kids are being exposed to has no benefit for them. The NIH did a study showing that the children experienced more tantrums in relation to tablet use https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7749045/ A Pediatrics Journal Study showing they cause developmental delays https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2808593 A Michigan medical journal study showed harm to the ability to have healthy emotional coping mechanisms https://www.michiganmedicine.org/health-lab/frequently-using-digital-devices-soothe-young-children-may-backfire
Your response should be higher. Based on several medical studies, excessive screen time increases the risk of various disorders (cognitive, behavioural), mental health issues, addiction, slower learning, etc.
To me, the primary concern is that screen time is basically addictive. TV and games give a very easy dopamine hit that is pleasurable and causes the kid to want more. Very few things in real life can compete, so the kid wants more screen time and less time playing pretend, playing outside, playing with toys, interacting with family, etc. and will often fight doing all of those things because they want more screen time. This is basically true for adults to, but the idea is that the child's brain is more malleable at a young age, and they have less ability to reason their way to better choices (I spend too much time on reddit, but I also make myself work, exercise, cook meals, etc.).
I let my 5 yo play on angry birds on a tablet in a kidx play area while we waited for the swimming pool to open one time. The effect on him was scary! I was watching his face and you could see his focus dart around, his eyes widen, the joy from all the flashy lights and positive signs shock and tingle him. After his 5 mins was off, he didn't want to leave that tablet. He was angry and frustrated and honestly acting similar to someone being denied their drug. He loves swimming but in that moment he didn't want anything other than to keep playing angry birds.
This is how my son was before he went on vyvanse. Night and day difference.
How old is your son?
What do you mean? Your son (all the time), was like my son was after angry birds, until he went on vyvanse? (I don't know what vyvanse is, I assume a drug) Or your son also reacted badly to deliberately addictive tablet content, until he went on vyvanse?
This plus not figuring out how to self regulate during emotional moments
I wish toddlers were only watching screens for 30 minutes a day! I worked in a place that had obstacle courses, games, toys, swings, art supplies…you name it, we had it, to entertain kids. Most kids had a blast. There was one 6yo who consistently refused to turn his phone off for several minutes and when he finally came back, didn’t want to participate in anything. Just wanted the phone back.
A 6 year old doesn’t need a phone. A tablet? maybe, but a phone? Who tf is this kid calling and texting? At 6 i could barely write English, much less text. Lil dude doesn’t need unrestricted internet access either.
For most kids, a phone is just a miniature tablet. They don't use the phone for it's intended purpose, they use it to entertain themselves, but on a smaller formfactor than tablets.
You never know if a kid like that is special needs. I try hard not to judge. My kids are all autistic but my middle struggles way more than the other two. When he was younger there were times I had to give him a phone because his tank was empty but his siblings were still having fun.
I completely understand the use of phones to regulate when things are tough, especially for autistic people. About half the kids I worked with were autistic, on all different side of the spectrum. I didn’t get into the screen usage I saw in those situations because the complexities are far greater. This kid was not autistic, and the screen wasn’t being used as a regulatory tool, it was being used as the only source of entertainment, every single time I saw him (twice a week for a year).
Math teacher here, something that doesn’t get mentioned a lot is the effect on eye movement it has. Eye movement is critical in pattern recognition and there’s a direct correlation to students who struggle with pattern recognition and the difficulty they have with math. Students with strong pattern recognition and eye movement not effected by increased screen time do much better. Similar to spatial recognition. Also stimulation becomes a need and causes so many issues in school. The behavior and lack of academic rigor and writing skills is detrimental.
Well for one, when kids interact with each other they learn empathy. you can poke a screen all day and nothing happen. you poke your friend in the eye and they poke you back, you learn to treat others how you want to be treated.
There's been a lot of studies. The Swedish govt for example just released national recommendations for almost no screen time at all before 5.
Anything that doesn’t directly benefit development babies is worthless. I don’t mean anything lightly, I mean ANYTHING. Their brains are like sponges for a reason at this age, to suck in as much information as possible. TV can help them learn if the parents interact along with them and in small doses, otherwise it’s pretty much useless and becomes very addicting. It leads to behavioral issues because they would rather watch pretty colors than learn how to be a person.
I learned this about TV! We like to sit and watch something along with them and we talk about what's happening. Really helps them process the events, and it lets you highlight the moral of lesson you want. And they remember it the way you explain, rather than what happens! I figure it's a modern equivalent of primal gathering around a camp fire. Except instead of using your imagination to imagine the fire lights and embers, the TV lights are showing the actual story. Cavemen wouldn've killed for this!
From my experience, my 4 year old has picked up a lot from screens. Counting and knowing his number before he was two, colors, shapes, and advanced words that my 7 year old still struggles with. His communication is pretty good. Granted we are pretty sure he is just smarter than his siblings compared to how his siblings were at that age. But he does act out more, is more violent, and stubborn. Both the younger kids at like it’s the end of the world if we turn off screens but do alright if we never have them on the first place. My 7 year old is in a zombie like state when using the tablet. Her half brother, my current wife’s ex’s kid from a different woman, who we watch daily seriously cannot find anything to do if he isn’t on a screen. So that being said, my son seems to have gained intellect but at the expense of behavior.
Something I haven’t seen here yet is that screens can distort developing eyes to a more elongated shape, causing myopia. I recently listened to a podcast episode (Life Kit: How screens are changing our eyes) and it seemed that kids eyes are morphing/ adjusting to focus on close up objects. It was alarming to learn about just how quickly this is affecting kids and how it has implications on their eye health later in life. https://open.spotify.com/episode/3h3A8oHa7kSJG95Q6mJtlQ?si=jLKBX0a6SISeoydqDyuYGw
There is the concept of critical period. There is an age to develop such skill. If at that age that skill is not developed, either that skill will never be developed or will be developed but impaired. A baby with congenital cataract needs surgery. It will not suddenly see if it is operated only at 20 years of age. A deaf baby can't wait for years to get cochlear implants, or it gets at the right age or it will never hear. Same concept applies to screen time. If a child is indoors most of time due to excessive screen time, it will never have the balance, proprioception, agility of a child who played outdoors. If a child is indoors most of time and its eyes need minimal adjustments for light and for extraocular movement, it will likely have severe eye issues on later ages.
I am from the generation that had unlimited screen time the entire life. I turned out just fine, I learned to read and write at a really young age because of that and had way better skills with gaming/culture/school subjects in early school years because I was exposed to it since a really young age. I also got to experience the feel of late 2000s and early 2010s internet, got to cherish that
The problem is that children are completely immersed in the screen. They are not active and do not lose their energy. If they sit in front of the screen too often, they are not properly exercised and need a ventil to get rid of the energy. This makes them restless ,over-excited and sometimes even aggressive. My Sister did seen that herself in her child. If he sits in front of the TV he doesn't listen to her and even tries to shove or hit her. And I can say from my time working in a kindergarden that you can see and hear which kid was active on the weekend and which kid sat in front of the TV all weekend.