Tag Archive for screen time

Use With Caution

The cell phone, screen time, social media… we hear report after report about how each of these technologies impact our children. It’s a complicated issue…and a huge issue for anyone raising children today. So when I come across new information about the impact of technology on our children, both positive and negative, I like to pass it along to you. Recently, I found two studies published in early 2023 that I wanted to share with you.

First, a study out of the University of North Carolina recruited 169 middle school students and followed them for three years to assess the impact of three social media platforms—Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat—on their sensitivity to feedback. At the start of the study, researchers asked each participant how often they checked the three social platforms. The answers ranged from once a day to over twenty times a day. (Other studies have shown 78% of teens report checking their social media sites at least hourly and 35% report using a social media site “almost constantly.”) Every year of the three-year study, participants underwent brain imaging sessions while completing a task to measure their brain activity when anticipating social feedback from peers.  This data revealed that children who grow up checking their social media more often become hypersensitive to feedback from their peers, their sensitivity to social rewards and punishment was altered. Becoming hypersensitive to peer feedback may increase a teen’s tendency to give in to peer pressure—whether negative or positive pressure.

A second longitudinal study looked at the data from 506 children in Singapore. Specifically, the parents of the children were asked to report the average amount of screen time their 12-month-old children consumed on weekdays and weekends. The children were then divided into four groups based on screen time: 1) less than one hour, 2) 1-2 hours, 3) 2-4 hours, and 4) more than 4 hours.  At 18-months, each child underwent an EEG to measure brain activity. In addition, each child completed various tests to measure attention span and executive functioning at 9-years-old. After comparing all the data collected, the research suggests that the more screen time a child was subjected to as an infant, the greater the altered brain activity and the more deficits were noted in the measures of attention span and executive functioning. These deficits may translate into difficulty controlling impulses, difficulty sustaining attention, difficulty following through with multi-step instructions, and difficulty persisting in hard tasks.

Our children and teens go through sensitive periods of brain development. How screen time and social media are used during those times can impact their brain development and, as a result, their behaviors. With this information in mind, our children will benefit from careful monitoring of their screen time and education on the healthy use of screens.

Cell phones, screen time, social media…they are not going away. But we must teach our children to manage this technology for their healthy development. With that in mind,

  • Become a good role model in managing screen time and social media use. Remember, the internet can be a risk and an opportunity for your child, depending on how you and your children manage it. How your children manage it begins with how you model managing it in your own life.
  • Rather than constantly fighting your teen over screen time, encourage their involvement in physical activities. For instance, they might join a sport team, go for a bike ride, enjoy a “pick up game” with peers, or start using a gym membership. Read Take Your Teen From Screen Time to “Exer-Time” for more details on how physical activity alters the impact of screen time.
  • Don’t use screens to distract your children. Instead, engage them in the restaurant while you wait for your food. Play games or talk in the car on trips (whether short trips to the store or long trips). Teach your children to find ways other than the use of screens to manage their boredom–things like card games, going for a walk, playing catch off a wall, playing music, writing, art, etc. Model ways of entertaining yourself that do not include screen time.

These three actions can start our children down a path of using technology in a healthy manner that will protect them for a lifetime.

The Internet: Is It a Risk or an Opportunity for Your Child? YES!!

Let’s face it. The cyberworld, with all its knowledge, gaming, social media, and videos has taken up residence in our homes…and it’s here to stay.

Some families respond to the cyberworld with fear…and rightly so. It is filled with risk.

Other families respond to the cyberworld with joy and anticipation…and rightly so. It is filled with opportunities.

In fact, the cyberworld has both risks and opportunities, just like every other facet of life that our children encounter. I love the graphic on page 8 of this presentation. It shows the risk and opportunity of both the cyberworld and the non-cyberworld. YouTube presents risks and opportunities in a similar fashion as movies, twitter as the social gathering at a park, amazon as a bookstore, and so forth. Perhaps two of the biggest differences between the spaces being compared in this graphic are how familiar we, as parents, are with each one and how easily we can shelter our children from the risks while affording them the opportunities. Nonetheless, they both carry risks and opportunities.

What can a parent do to limit the risks of the cyberworld while affording their children the chance to enjoy the opportunities? The first thing to do is to educate yourself about the cyberworld as best you can.

  • Talk with your children about various social media sites, games, or video cites. I don’t mean educate them. Let them educate you. I talked with young man last week who talked about several groups focused on improving society through their Facebook or YouTube accounts.  
  • Engage the cyberworld with your child. Play some games with them. Watch videos together. Share videos with one another. As you learn about social media, interact with our children via social media.
  • Learn firsthand about the cyberworld and its “draw.” As you do, share with your children what you learn and how you have established personal boundaries to maintain the cyberworld as a tool in our life rather than letting it become your “master.”

As with so many aspects of parenting, the best way to teach our children is to begin by being a good role model. Let them see you manage the cyberworld in a healthy manner. Let them see how you limit the risk and emphasize the opportunities. It’s only a beginning, but a great beginning it is!

Take Your Teen From Screen Time to “Exer-Time”

We hear a great deal about the potential impact of “too much” screen time on our teens’ mental and emotional health. An international study published in August of 2021, however, offers a more nuanced look at screen time and a possible “antidote.” Specifically, this study (summarized here) utilized data from over 577,000 adolescents between 11-years-old and 15-years-old from 42 countries. The teens completed surveys reporting how much of their free time they spent on screens—watching TV or YouTube, gaming, checking social media, chatting or emailing, and surfing the net. They also reported their patterns of physical exercise and several mental/emotional health factors. The study revealed several interesting results.

  • Lower amounts of screen time had no effect on the participants sense of well-being. Specifically, less than 60 minutes per day for females and less than 90 minutes per day for males seemed to have little effect on teen well-being.
  • If screen time went over 75 minutes per day for girls or 105 minutes per day for males, life-satisfaction began to drop. The more time spent on screens above these cut off points, the less happy the teens were with their lives. One of the researchers of this study even said, “If screen time goes beyond about two hours per day, there’s a detrimental relationship with mental health.”
  • The more regular exercise the teens experienced, the greater their life satisfaction and the fewer physical complaints for both males and females.
  • Perhaps most fascinating result to me: teens reported the positive effect of exercise regardless of how much time they spent on screens. This may mean that exercise helps “undo the damage to their well-being” that results from excessive screen time.
  • The greatest life satisfaction was reported by females who exercised every day and had less than an hour of screen time a day and males who exercised every day and had less than two hours of screen time a day.

This still leaves a lot of questions unanswered—like why the male/female difference or the different impacts of various types of social media. However, it also offers parents an excellent course of action. Rather than fight your teen to “get off the screen,” you might encourage them to get involved in some physical activity. Get them involved in a sport. Take up regular bike riding or jogging with them as a hobby. Go hiking on a regular basis. Find some physical activity your teen enjoys…and help them get involved. It may cut down on their screen time. And it may counteract some of the negative effects of excessive screen time on their mental and emotional health. So get out there and get active with your teen.

From Where Do Our Tweens Learn Values?

What values do you want your children to learn? Who do you want to teach them those values? Of course, we all want to teach our children the values we believe in and support. But there is another teacher in your home. This teacher reflects the values of our society and teaches those values to your children, tweens, and teens whether you agree with them or not. Who is this teacher? TV’s, videos, and screens.

Tweens’ average daily screen media use ranges from 4-6 hours per day with 53% of that time being with TVs and videos. As you can imagine from these numbers, TV shows and videos can have a huge impact on the values our children learn. A recent report by UCLA’s Center for Scholars and Storytellers assessed the values tweens (8-12 years old) saw portrayed in popular television shows from 1967 through 2017.  This study examined the top watched “tween television shows” and “surveyed which values were being communicated in the storytelling.”  The 16 values they tracked included achievement, benevolence, community, conformity, fame, financial success, hedonism, image, physical fitness, popularity, power, security, self-acceptance, self-centeredness, spiritualism, and tradition.  You can learn more about the findings in The Rise and Fall of Fame: Tracking the Landscape of Values Portrayed on Tween Television from 1967 to 2017. But I want to share how just a few observations about how values have changed over that 50-year period.

In 1967, Community Feeling was the #1 value portrayed in shows for tweens. By 2007, Community had fallen to #11. Fortunately, it rose to #5 by 2017. Valuing a sense of community has had quite a roller coaster ride in television.

In 1967, Benevolence was ranked #2 in values portrayed on television shows popular among tweens. By 2007 it had dropped to #12. It did rise to #8 by 2017. Still, it fell below achievement, self-acceptance, image, popularity, community feeling, fame, and self-centeredness.

On the other hand, fame was ranked #15 in 1967. It rose to #1 in 2007 and remained #6 by 2017.  Achievement was ranked #10 in 1967 and rose to #2 in 2007 and #1 in 2017. What five values were between the #1 achievement and the # 6 fame in 2017? #2 was self-acceptance. #3 was image. #4 was popularity. #5 was a sense of community.

Notice the difference. The top 3 values in portrayed 1967 were a sense of community, benevolence, and image. The top 3 values portrayed in 2017 included achievement, self-acceptance, and image. Benevolence ranked #8 in 2017. Achievement, popularity, fame, and self-centeredness all rank above benevolence. Are these really the values we want our children to learn? I think most of us would say not. Instead, we’d say, “Houston…we have a problem.”

This review of “televised values” also looked at reality shows vs. fictional shows. Not surprisingly, reality shows conveyed self-oriented values like fame, image, and self-centeredness. Fictional shows conveyed more community-oriented values like benevolence, a sense of community, and self-acceptance.

We must ask ourselves: what values do we want our children to observe and learn for 4-6 hours a day? Right now, they are learning the values conveyed through television and social media. As a parent, what can you do?

  1. Teach your children to be wise consumers of television. Teach them to use critical thinking when they watch various shows. Teach them that reality shows do not depict the life of your average person and fictional shows do not depict the complexity of struggles people experience in life. Complex problems do not resolve in a 30- to 60-minute show, or even in a 2-hour movie.
  2. Expose your children to real world issues in an age appropriate manner. Let your children learn about the world at a level appropriate for their age. This may be as simple as taking a trip to another state or reading fiction stories about various people’s struggles. Trips to history museums are also a way to let our children learn about the world.
  3. Volunteer. Serving other people is wonderful way for your whole family to learn and have fun about the needs of the world around us. In the process, we also learn that people with needs are often people like us.
  4. Read. Research suggests that reading increases empathy and kindness. Read your children a story at bedtime. Even as children become teens and young adults, we can read a book at the same time (maybe one of their choice) and enjoy talking about it as you both read.

These are just four suggestions to help convey the values of your family to your children and teens. What are your suggestions for teaching our children the values we cherish instead of leaving it up to TV and videos? Share them below. We could all use some suggestions.

Don’t Make Children Prisoners…Set Them Free

I couldn’t believe my eyes, so I repeated out loud what I had read. Nope…can’t believe my ears either. But it’s true. Prison inmates in an Indiana maximum security facility are guaranteed two hours of outdoor time every day; but a survey completed in 2016 found three-quarters of children in the UK spend less time than those inmates outside each day. Half of the children didn’t even spend an hour outside each day. Twenty percent (that’s 1 in 5) didn’t even play outside at all on an average day! (More in Children Spend Less Time Outside Than Prison Inmates and Three-Quarters of UK Children Spend Less Time Outdoors Than Prison Inmates—Survey.) I imagine these numbers are very similar in the US.  In fact, a study in 2018 found that children spend an average of 10.6 hours on outdoor play per week (Study: Despite Known Benefits, Kids Are Playing Less). That is only 1.5 hours per day. Our children spend less time outside than prisoners even though outdoor play helps relieve stress, teach safety, and increase immunity (Who Needs a Prescription for Play).

It gets worse. Our children’s free time has decreased in the last 50 years. Take the time between 1981 and 1997. Children spent 18% more time in school, 145% more time doing schoolwork, and 168% more time shopping with parents (Read more in All Work & No Play: Why Your Kids are More Anxious, Depressed). Unstructured play time has decreased even though research suggests children need twice as much unstructured play time as structured time (The Decline of Unstructured Play). Once again, our children have become the prisoners to the structures imposed on them. They miss out on the free, unstructured time that allows them to grow and learn.

One last comparison…our children grow increasingly isolated from supportive, non-parental adults as they progress through school. Rather than have a single teacher for most of the day, our children gain a “revolving cast of characters” in their lives as they switch to a new teacher every hour. This change occurs when our children are going through the massive changes of adolescence and they most need the support of caring adults. (Teen Suicides Are on the Rise.)  In effect, they become less isolated from caring adults and more involved with peers struggling with the same issues and who have the same lack of experience as they do. Our children need us.

The big question I had to ask myself as I contemplated these “prisoner comparisons” is: what can we do to break our children out of this prison? Thankfully, there are ways to do it. 

  • Encourage your children to engage in unstructured, self-directed play with peers. Learn the benefits of such unstructured time in How to Spend Quality Time with Your Children.
  • Encourage outdoor play. Outdoor play can accomplish great things. For instance, even risky outdoor play plays a purpose, helping to overcome anxiety…so Let Them Take a Risk.
  • Limit screen time. Limiting screen time can increase levels of happiness and increase our ability to  understand nonverbal communications and recognize emotions in others (See Just So You Know: Screen Time & Teen Happiness).
  • Provide opportunities for your children to build relationships with trusted adults outside the immediate family. In fact, It Takes a Village to raise a child.

Break your children out of prison…beginning right now!