When it comes to children’s development and digital parenting, parents should worry both about kids’ screen time their own. Screen are here to stay and have taken over, unfortunately most often than we would like, meal time and other key family moments.
Nothing better than facts to explain why screentime has changed parenting forever. Emily has put these together amazingly well:
FACT #1: AVERAGE AGE OF OF ONSET FOR "REGULAR" SCREEN USE HAS GONE FROM AGE 4 YEARS OLD TO 4 *MONTHS* OLD.
It's no question that our use of screens has increased dramatically. What is particularly concerning, however, is the earlier exposure of "screentime" to very young children. "Child development is relational": time spent on screens is time *not* spent building critical skills. Source
FACT #2: LANGUAGE IS THE SINGLE-BEST PREDICTOR OF SCHOOL ACHIEVEMENT.
Children who are exposed to the regular back-and-forth flow of verbal conversation develop strong language skills. When adults are distracted or interrupted by incoming texts, a quick notification "ding", or the pull of social media, children's language development suffers. Simply put, being interrupted interrupts your child's learning. Source
FACT #3: FOR CHILDREN AGE 0 TO 5, EMERGENCY ROOM VISITS INCREASED 10% BETWEEN 2005-2012.
A clever Yale economics student noticed something as AT&T rolled out their 3G cellular network across the country. As smartphone ownership rose, rates of ER visits for children birth to 5 years old increased. Source
FACT #4: INCREASED PARENTAL USE OF SMARTPHONES IN FRONT OF CHILDREN INCREASED HOW HARSHLY THEY RESPONDED TO THEM.
In 2013, Dr. Jenny Radesky and other researchers collected observational data about parental interactions with children when smartphones were present. This groundbreaking study was the first to explore how parents used smartphones around their children and helped launch further studies looking at this relationship. Source
FACT #5: ON AVERAGE, ADULTS CHECK THEIR SMARTPHONES ANYWHERE FROM 80-200 TIMES PER DAY.
We are rarely without our smartphones. Even when no notifications pulls us to respond, we reach for our phones in moments of boredom, or sometimes, just compulsively because we are so used to checking them. While there are some easy solutions (turning off notifications, for example), increasing awareness of when and why we are pulled to our devices is critical towards making healthy changes. Source
FACT #6: MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO. AT ONLY 42 MINUTES OLD, NEWBORN BABIES CAN IMITATE AN ADULT STICKING OUT HER TONGUE.
Researchers at the University of Washington's I-Labs demonstrate how kids learn by imitation: "Where attention goes, energy flows." Many of us know how appealing our phones seem to children: it's no wonder, since they are interested in what we are interested in. And adults are modeling a fascination with screens. Source
FACT #7: BOREDOM IS GOOD. PARADOXICALLY, IT REQUIRES EFFORT. SCREENS ARE EASY.
It is in the most boring moments of downtime that creative thinking happens. Psychologists are concerned that spending so many hours on screens has trained children's brains to crave experiences that more closely match the fast pace of video games. Source
FACT #8: TWO-THIRDS OF PARENTS ARE CONCERNED ABOUT HOW MUCH SCREENTIME THEIR TEEN HAS. BUT ONLY 57% OF PARENTS SET LIMITS ON SCREENTIME.
Teens get a bad rap for being on their phones too much. And there are definitely areas for improvement. But parents struggle with setting limits for their own screen use, which may explain while only a little more than half of parents set limits for their teen's use of screens. Source
