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I'm an elementary educator, and the distinction I always try to make for parents is between "low effort, low reward" screen time and "high effort, high reward."

Mindlessly scrolling through YouTube is a low effort activity, which is why so many of us (myself included) do it more than we really ought to. Clearly spending some quality time learning a skill, coding, or engaging in some creative affair is clearly superior, even though they could both be characterized as "screen time."

The one thing I alert to them, though, is just how much firepower there is in tuning the experience so meticulously to encourage their children to spend an extra minute or two on these apps. And this, I tell them, is the real danger. Not so much the content, but it essentially is a tool that is rewarding their kid for not much intellectual effort at all.

When I wanted to not be bored as a kid, I had to put some effort into it: take out my toys, create a story line, put things away, etc. Most of the kids I teach today have no idea what that split-second of boredom really feels like: they just whip out their phone and that's it. That, to me, is the real danger.

The kids who are taught to stave off that immediate (but cheap) gratification and instead use the wealth of tech we have today for more productive uses are going to have a huge eg up on the ones who don't.

It's hard to generalize too much about screen time. It is almost universally bad, especially for kids, and should be kept to a minimum. Gadgets nowadays provide an unlimited stream of stimulation, novelty, and dopamine hits. No child can resist that, which is why the "lesser evils" like education apps are still "gamified" to have any chance of keeping a kid's attention. The result is that kids from an early age are growing up addicted to dopamine and the internet. It's not much different from fat kids already being addicted to junk food from an early age, it's just not as visible -- and both situations will be very difficult to change during the individual's life.

Really, you just have to spend some time with the current generation of children to see how disastrous technology has been. Their brain chemistry depends on constant outside stimulation, and anything else is boring.

Also, if you think you can effectively police what your kids do and see on the internet, you are sorely mistaken.

Whilst I agree it's hard to generalise and one shouldn't.

Now I'm a father of a 3 year old, I'm seeing differences in screen time with other parents/kids.

There's two kinds of parents, ones that pay attention to what their kids are doing, and those who don't.

We're almost all children of Boomers, who was raised with unfettered access to Television. Our boomer parents allowed some of us unfettered access to the early internet, video games, and television. Some of us were told to get outside and play. I certainly remember that some of my friends had restrictions on Games/TV/Etc, and some friends had no restrictions.

Most if not all of the fear mongering about Screen Time is coming from Boomers, not Gen X/Y.

That said.. I can easily separate the two parent's when it comes to screen time by telling them how bad letting their kids watch Youtube unmonitored is. The parents who monitor what their kids do will agree with me, the parents who don't monitor will disagree with me "Ohh its fine whatever".

The OP is right, the problem isn't Screen Time... it's content.

We have a rule in our house, no screen unless it's important, and if it should be shared.. So if my wife gets a text, and we're all playing, she tells us "Oh i got a text message from this person, I'm going to read it and reply". It involves everyone.

If my daughter is doing something, we do it with her. All her apps are educational and I've run them through my parents who are teachers with over 30+ years experience.

The problem is content, not screens.

Reality is those kids are going to grow up in a future where screens are always around. We'd like to think we're teaching them that screens are OK, as long as you include others in what you're doing.. So that my daughter doesn't become anti-social.

I'd love to see the list of apps your teacher parents approved. :)

Couldn't have said it better myself. We have a strict list of apps and games that are allowed, but they basically get unfettered access to those ones. Nothing with ads or microtransactions, no mindless games, no YouTube at all unless we scraped a specific channel with youtube-dl to filter the crap. They have plenty of stuff to choose from and never get bored. Most the time they'd rather go play outside in the cubby or with the Lego anyway.

> It is almost universally bad, especially for kids, and should be kept to a minimum.

Were you aware of this recent study[1] that seemed to draw a different conclusion?

> 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.

> In fact, regularly eating potatoes was almost as negatively associated with well-being as was technology use, and the negative association between wearing glasses and well-being was greater.

I would think that something "almost universally bad" would present itself as more statistically significant in terms of well-being.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00137-6

It is almost universally bad, especially for kids, and should be kept to a minimum.

Had I heeded that advice as a kid I almost certainly wouldn't have this very comfortable job and career I currently have. That being said I agree that not all screen time is created equal and it is important that screen time is guided and monitored. Also there is nothing that precludes screen time from also being a parent-child bonding activity.

I concur with this.

I decided that I would not enforce a time limitation on screen time, but actually forced myself to be parted of my kids activities, either in or outside of screen time, and in fact he doesn't really care much about multimedia content, occasionally plays some video games with me, and most of the time he just loves to play with his toys, draw and construct paper figures.

It might be because just chance, but I notice that my kid doesn't care as much about this kind of entertainment as the children of my family and friends who are more concerned and try (and mostly fail) to enforce limitations.

> I decided that I would not enforce a time limitation on screen time, but actually forced myself to be parted of my kids activities, either in or outside of screen time

This is my approach, as well, and I’ve found it to be really effective. Even if my daughter is sitting there watching cartoons on YouTube or TV I’m usually around to ask her what she’s watching and so she can show me and share with me all of the things she’s laughing and excited about. YouTube has also been a source of finding passions for her - She loves crafting and painting videos and now has a huge interest in them in “real life” and asks for craft and art supplies, which I’m more than happy to indulge.

I used to beat myself up a lot over her screen time, but now I see how valuable it is for her and how connecting with her throughout the day is far more important than fighting with her over a few more minutes of YouTube.

I hate the phrase "screen time". Why does the fact that there's a screen involved matter so much? Many "screen time" activities are more closely related to non-"screen time" activities than to other "screen time" activities.

If the kids is typing a report instead of handwriting it, or reading an ebook instead of a physical one, why does that count as "screen time" along with flappy bird?

Blue light produced by screens is harmful and effects sleep pattern.

Do you have any sources for that? Not being negative here, but last time I checked it was mostly in the realm of hypothesis and broscience.

This sounds like a source. http://www.gwern.net/docs/melatonin/2009-burkhart.pdf

But it seems to be very subjective. And the group that started limiting blue-light before sleep seems to have percieved their sleep quality as quite low, so the improvement might be only correlated?

Both iOS and Android have timed night mode features to lower the colour temperature... or at least apps to do that if not using a recent OS.

I'm not convinced it's much of an issue these days.

> It's like saying "time at the park is bad for you" because some kids go to the park to smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol.

What a great analogy. Thank you. I always bristle at the "screen time is bad" arguments because I spent a lot of time in front of a computer as a kid (as I imagine many here at HN did) and I think for the most part it was time well spent.

How do you teach them that the end of some "unlimited" screen time by dinner must not involve a tantrum? Because that's why screen time is limited in our house: not because of the screen time itself, but because of the bad vibes it leaves in the family life upon stopping. (Ages 7 and 9.)

Let them finish what they were doing. Give them a 5 minute warning and set a timer.

We have strongly enforced limited time (the device itself lock when allowed time is over) and softly enforced ("unlimited" until some deadline).

For us it helped a lot to have reminders firing off 10 or 15 minutes before any hard deadlines (e.g going to school) and warning them 5 or 10 mins before dinner or going somewhere.

They're still not happy, but they take it way better and learn to do whatever they really want to do in that remaining time.

We taught them from a very very young age (1-2) that if they sook when it's time to stop on the tech, they don't get to use it next time. It rarely if ever actually got to that. They just save the game or stop the show and continue it another time.

but even then excessive screen time is still bad because of what it precludes the kid from doing instead. like socializing or exercise. but that’s in the extreme case and would also apply to excessive anything, like reading

Likewise excessive socializing or exercise would preclude kids from reading or screen time. I don't see your point.

I guess their point was to balance the times. I.e. Yes, excessive socializing would also be bad if you start neglecting everything else.

Excessive socializing is the default, though - if kids have nothing better to do, they "hang out".

Is it? When I had nothing to do, I read or used the computer (for games, and then increasingly for programming).

Me too. Because I had essentially unlimited screentime. But you and me are the exceptions. Think of people you remember from primary and secondary school.

The clear solution is to jog on the spot, chatting with your friends while watching TV with subtitles on. The ultimate activity.

Perfectly showcasing why trying to do all simultaneously in a "balance" makes you benefit from none of them.

I think this activity is called “Pokémon Go”