I find the article presenting "screen time" as if it's a single thing highly problematic.

Ephemeralization has led to a phone or tablet being equivalent to a novel, textbook, comic book, telephone, game console, TV, academic journal (I do, in fact know an 8 year old who reads academic journals), and more. With parents often being much more hesitant than they were 2-3 decades ago to allow children to go anywhere unsupervised, it's often the primary means by which children interact with each other privately.

Even a subset like social media use can entail a broad range of different behaviors. One person uses social media to talk with a small circle of friends and family. Another puts on some sort of public display to get attention from strangers. A third plays the addictive "engagement" game.

Of course, an observer who just sees a kid holding a tablet has little idea how they're using it. A parent wishing to direct their child's activities has new challenges when a screen can be used for so many different things.

Computers and other devices with screens are massive double edged sword for kids growing up, it's a huge worry as a parent.

On the one hand, you can learn a huge amount of stuff just sitting there at home reading and following links. There are kids who've learned HFT level c++ sitting with a computer. (I worked with one). You can also learn a lot about just about anything else.

On the other hand, the same device can swallow your whole future via gamification. Social media and game designers have figured out how to make things so addictive kids get angry if you take it away from them. And you can't not have any online presence at all as a teenager, it's part of life now.

Hopefully I'll be able to navigate a happy medium.

I have a 9 and 6 year old (both boys). It's a pretty major issue in our household trying to balance screen-time with the kids and staying on the same page with my wife. I'm more flexible than she is but she's done more research on the topic than I have so I try to defer to her. However, i'm pretty hard-headed sometimes.

We just try to limit duration and also use it as a reward system. Our oldest will get himself out of bed and 100% ready for school ( shoes/socks, brush teeth the whole 9 yards) in order to get 20min screen-time before school. I wish he didn't get any before school but I agreed to the preconditions and i always tell him "a deal's a deal".

Our younger son will self-regulate to a point, like he gets bored and will play in his room or throw me a lightsaber and fight. However, he's really really into watching youtube videos of other people playing games with the commentary. He can't get enough of roblox for example so after an hour or so we make him go do something else and take a break.

Both kids are very social and physically active so it doesn't bother me very much. Plus, there are days when, as a parent, you just have nothing left and kids in front of a screen give you a few min. to lick your wounds and recover.

I can't help but roll eyes at screen time as the newest neo-puritian trend. Mainly because it is so damn meaningless without the /what/. It is like trying to lump pulp novels, newspapers, comic books, hard core porn and textbooks together but even worse.

I worry far more about the cyclic "must find new sin and moral panics" trend continuing. I am frankly wondering if it is a biological derangement of life stage akin to impulsiveness of teenagers or reactionary nostalgia of elders.

My iPhone's screen time feature made me realize that the time spent on a device in and of itself is actually pointless without further context. When I started reading white papers on my daily commute, my screen time went up drastically yet that was a good thing.

When I became unhappy at work, I realized that also corresponded to a spike in screen time, generally in playing little free games. That's a problem, but increased screen time is only a symptom.

Yes, it's dangerous! Since it takes away other types of sensorial experiences from young kids..it's only touch on a glass surface..

I've noticed with our young one, that he switches from one video to the next very quickly and seems to have hard time sticking to one video for too long.. as a lesser of two evils, tried putting on the TV and then turning it off after certain time (beaming the content via Chrome and controlling the timing that way)

Are their time rationing apps/systems for iOS devices? Setup timer for 30 minutes and then the device shuts off or locks? I see some paid options when searching online but don't know how well they work and if anyone here has experience with them?

Growing up I had pretty much everyone telling me to get off the computer and "go outside" or whatever. I now make a lot more money than all of those people (using screens) and still spend most of my time on my computer.

People have been complaining about screen time since there have been screens. Screens are where all of modern society happens. Keep them away from your kids at your/their own risk.

I find it terribly complicated. My 3yo doesn't watch any screen yet, but I have a dilemma. On one side, there's a huge world of cool visual and auditive content that can be exciting, stimulating and an amazing tool for learning and discovering the world. On the other side, I'm very aware of how absorbing and addictive is, and how difficult is to ration it. Anyway, I feel she's still too young. She doesn't ask for it yet, so why start? She's already very busy discovering the world by herself with all her senses.

The biggest problem with "screen time" is that so much of it is designed to addict people. Data and algorithms are used to determine what will keep them watching.

Books and the like aren't really designed this way.

But that is the big difference. What this community should probably be doing, rather than lumping all "screen time" together, is working on ways to curate and present content in ways that doesn't have this problem.

I believe it is an extreme case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater to severely limit the use of anything with a screen, when what you really want to do is break the addictive cycle of the "bad stuff."

I have a 6yr old. This was his argument ( in Spanish ) when asked whether he preferred to go to an Amusement Park or sit all day and watch youtubers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RZNy6ARzZ4&feature=youtu.be

99% of the kids I know will ALWAYS opt to veg out and play games or watch Youtube. This was not the case when I was growing up in NYC with all the game-sets and cable TV.

So what are we doing about it?

1 - he is only limited to Netflix. 30min max per day

2 - Every other day, he can play 15-20 min of only a handful of games like Chess, Cut-the-rope, and Lego Adventures on the tablet.

3 - We've decided to move to Patagonia next month so that he will be able to run wild in nature whenever he gets 'bored'.

4 - We quickly realized that the best way to lead is by example, therefore mom and dad put away and don't use the phones at home while he is around. This too has help my severe addiction.

My instincts tell me that the LONGER he stay off devices, the better off he will be. It's like Crack to them. S.Jobs knew that himself, that's why he didn't allow his daughter to touch the stuff.

If there's little evidence showing that the medium is affecting people positively or negatively, perhaps the key differentiator is content.

A medium is the vehicle for content, and content is dictated by the medium. However, the content you the parent or your tiny adult ingest is entirely of your own control. A parent should ensure their tiny adult is receiving that which will help them develop into healthy adults. Most people simply mimic the things they see and practices they observe, which has broad implications for the kind of content a tiny adult should ingest.

Consider this situation: there are only two shows left on the Earth: "Mister Rogers' Neighborhoood" and "Reno 911." Which show should your tiny adult watch to grow them into a healthy adult? The answer, obviously, is the former. The latter can be viewed later in life once the tiny adult has a more complete understanding of right and wrong.

I spent an enormous amount of time on my computer as a kid, and I credit that time with giving me the superpowers later in life that accelerated my career. I had a decade-long head start on many of my peers. So I am hugely biased that "hey, I turned out fine. No big deal".

However, seeing my own kids' behavior even when I heavily restrict their screen time makes me question that. When their time is up they wail and moan and yell in a way that goes well beyond the usual kind of complaining kids do. I tightly control the apps that my kids are allowed to use and limit their time (thanks to iOS screen time). In the times when I've taken away iPads as punishment for extended periods, my kids' moods have improved. The amount of arguing has gone down. Their behavior is better. It's inescapable that these things alter them in some way. This is without social media even!

I genuinely don't know what the right answer is. On one hand, they have this amazing machine that is a gateway to all sorts of learning. It's almost like we've stepped into the world of "Diamond Age". On the other hand, it makes them turn into borderline sociopaths, even when they use it for short periods of time. The addictive effect is real too, and that is also frightening. If given the choice between anything and iPad time, iPad time wins hands-down 100% of the time. The human race has entered a whole new unexplored territory.

I have noticed, having the sensitivity of a qi gong practitioner, that computers and interfacing with a digital device makes your body weaker. It sucks the energy right out of you. It also concentrates the energy around the head.

The dangers can come when you don't rebalance the energies in your body. Doing something physical is important and I am sure a lot of you guys will tend to something physical after large amounts of screen time. Unless you ignore the body. That's where you can get a lot of anxiety, mental imbalances, neurosis etc.

The fuel for the mind comes from the body. If you have a strong body, the drain from using the screen will be lessened but make no mistake about it, its taking away from you. You are trading information for energy so make it worthwhile and safe. Don't put the laptops on your lap. Keep the cellphone away from your face. Take a lot of breaks. Eat well.

In all my years of using my computer, I have never gotten up from it and thought to myself "Wow, I feel great after that". It might have been interesting and stimulating but my body would not agree, in a way that's different from reading a book for an hour. Computers will continue to get even more immersive. Maybe the stereotypical image of an alien is accurate for the future of a human being, big heads, little bodies.

I have worked in IT for 37+ years. That's way, way too much.

This is an excellent read for data scientists, as it illustrates how easy it is to get possibly wrong conclussions from trying to find a particular correlation in data

I am concerned about my own screen time, especially if I also count listening to audio books and reading ebooks and Machine learning papers. Even when I go to the gym now, I usually listen to a podcast while working out. I don’t play computer games (except when my job was doing ‘game AI’ on Nintendo games) but between my personal research and working in an AI lab, I spend a large fraction of my awake time engaged with something digital.

I think we should also be asking this about adults. We know screens interfere with sleep. We know screen time is correlated with depression. We know the mere presence of smartphones lowers cognitive ability and concentration. It seems obvious screen time is bad for adults too, and the research shows we usually spend many/most waking hours in front of one.

I wish we could breakdown "good screen time" and "bad screen time" ... or at least see if there are different types.

For me, screentime has worked really well. I don't have social media apps and notifications are on for critical apps i.e. Calendar, Slack, Journal entry (I achieved it with discipline).

Now the sad part is you can still access them on your browser and because of gamification, it is so easy to lose the track of time on those sites. I used to keep reading articles for hours even though I haven't finished a single task for the day.

What screentime offers me is a check which actually what I needed. It is like a teacher/friend who reminds me you are spending more time than supposed to in categories which is not important for you. At the moment, social media seems waste of time for me and so I set it up for a 5-minute limit. If I am reading important stuff on social media and it binges me the limit time. I think that check helps in reminding what is urgent and what is important and don't mind it as a problem as other people commented.

If you're concerned about this for yourself I highly recommend looking into NoSurf (https://nosurf.org/) to read about the effects on attention span and mindfulness caused by humanity's most powerful means of easy distraction, the net.

I bought an Android e-reader tablet (Boyue Likebook Mars) and it has been life changing. I suffer from the same problem since I use a computer almost 9-10 hours a day at work. Then I go home and use my laptop and my phone before I sleep. An e-reader has helped me cut down my screen usage by probably 2-3 hours a day.

I think the trick is not to regulate total screen time, but to regulate long uninterrupted blocks of screen time.

The "social media loop" that haunts many adults is not really different from whatever cravings kids are going through, and in both cases it can be combated with scheduled activity breaks that involve getting up and doing a bit of housework or going outside for few minutes. It promotes better sleep habits while not really limiting the core activity.

I would definitely not recommend encouraging anyone to go from one sedentary activity(games, Youtube) to another(homework, coding etc.) directly - that's something that makes "screen time" a nebulous timesink.

We created an App that helps strike a balance between screen time and physical activities. It's called healthy limit, currently available on the Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.healthylim...

The idea is to use a Fitbit to track a kids steps and sleep, and reward them with screen time for every step and every minute of sleep.

Parents decide the rules of exchange for steps and sleep to screen time.

I am having quite a few busy months, and in turn, having to spend a lot more time on screen. And I am starting to catch myself having some conscience issues with this. A part of my brain is automatically complaining that this isn't healthy and sustainable.

I catch myself getting anxious about my posture even though my back/neck doesn't hurt in the evening. And I think about my eyes a lot and how I don't want to 'damage' them even more.

Little things like this you know... it's the best self-concluded research out there.

I recommend following the work of Amy Orben, she's very critical of the wide conclusions drawn from weak data: https://twitter.com/OrbenAmy

And she's a researcher committed to good scientific practice.

Her tl;dr is that yeah, there are negative effects, but they're small and the data is messy. And screen time is a bad concept, because it lumps together very different things.

But what do kids do during winter when you really can't get out of the house that often? I didn't grow up in a region where winters are so severe that you can't get out of the house and play but I am raising kids who are in a region where winters are severe and I have no idea what to do other than letting them play inside with screens.

I limit my 5 year olds screen time to 20 minutes when she asks for screen time. She spends most of her time drawing or playing.

But if you think about it, the device screen time has really replaced the television of our youth. It is used more as a way to babysit our children so we do not have to engage with them.

tl;dr: We need more data and better data to draw reliable conclusions. This far the closest we can come is

"The authors’ overall calculations did find a statistically significant negative association between technology use and well-being: more screen time is associated with lower well-being in the young people surveyed. But the effects are so small — explaining at most 0.4% of the variation in well-being — as to be of little practical value."

As a parent I try to focus on "constructive activity" rather than screen time / non-screen time. Which means really cultivating a love of accomplishment — which can be encouraged, but ultimately it comes from inside them.

Maybe screen time isn't hurting well being in the short term but personally I'll still err on the side of caution. We have 0 data on the long term effects of screen time, which is what I'd be more concerned about anyway.

TLDR; Screen time has very small negative impact on well being and does not warrant policy change. The survey was done from 3 datasets with ~355K data points.

Quote: The association between digital technology use and adolescent well-being is negative but small, explaining at most 0.4% of the variation in well-being. These effects are too small to warrant policy change.

I spend most of my waking hours at my computer.

I do NOT consider it a problem that my kids spend a lot of time playing with computers (smartphone, tablet, laptop) too.

I hope all the parents who are severely restricting screen time have also cut potatoes out of their family’s diet.

The paper uses Specification Curve Analysis (SCA). I have never heard of SCA but it looks interesting.

This article does NOT answer "how much is too much?" question.

my! We're in 2018 and still talking about the screen rotting your brain?

Easy, when it starts hurting

My iPad screen time tells me exactly how long I’m sitting on the potty.