Screen Time for Kids Has Always Been an Issue

 

Screen Time for Kids Has Always Been an Issue

Today It’s So Much Worse

I have this vision of the evolution of human beings: necks sloped forward, nature’s adaptation for the ubiquitous smartphone addiction that affects children and adults alike. Until the brain implants gain popularity. Even in third world nations, smartphones are everywhere and often double as de facto banking/checking sources. As the Los Angeles Unified School District board (along with several others) voted to ban mobile phones in classrooms beginning in January of next year, the protests, mostly from high school teens, grew loud and clear. “It is just how we communicate.” “How can I reassure my parents if there is an emergency.” “It is how I keep track of my schedule and my assignments.” “How can I call for help if there is a gunman loose in our school?” The list goes on, but the board, so far anyway, has not relented. After all, the United States got along just fine for decades, centuries, without smartphones or anything close.

True those 30 million civilian semiautomatic assault firearms here, banned over the years (remember the Prohibition era Tommy-gun-carrying gangsters and the Assault Weapons ban in effect from 1994-2004), are relatively recent. School shootings are a related consequence of a Supreme Court that wanted all guns, all the time, everywhere, but surely that cannot be a reason for shackling teachers with a distraction that results in a second-rate classroom experience for young minds seeking a place in a competitive world. Screentime used to be just about television, but that sure changed. Now, young eyes and ears are focused on screens all the time, everywhere, and there are profound consequences to that addiction.

Nevertheless, we all seem to agree that much is lost in the massive deployment of handheld technology, today with much more processing power per unit than the entire computing power in the 1969 Apollo 11 spacecraft that landed on the Moon. And when content choices are left up to the children in their most formative years, they most certainly do not veer toward educational materials. Communication with peers is primary, but even when it comes to “television” … now a pretty all-encompassing term that embraces everything from streaming and other online content choices to degrees of anonymous interactivity on what appear to be very toxic platforms.

Writing for the July 5th Los Angeles Times, Jenny Gold addresses the medical and educational community’s assessment of the enormity of the problem and how parents should react with age-appropriate solutions: “Many parents allow children more than double the TV and tablet exposure that experts recommend… Parents are bombarded with a dizzying list of orders when it comes to screen time and young children: No screens for babies under 18 months. Limit screens to one hour for children under 5. Only ‘high-quality’ programming. No fast-paced apps. Don’t use screens to calm a fussy child. ‘Co-view’ with your kid to interact while watching… The stakes are high. Every few months it seems, a distressing study comes out linking screen time with a growing list of concerns for young children: Obesity. Behavioral problems. Sleep issues. Speech and developmental delays…

“Directives to limit the time young children spend on digital devices may not be taking root because many parents simply don’t believe their child’s screen time is a problem in the first place… [Legions] of parents … by choice or necessity allow their babies and preschoolers to watch several times more than the limit recommended by experts, creating a vast disconnect between the troubling predictions of harm and the reality of digital life for American families…

“The American Academy of Pediatrics [AAP] recommends families avoid screens for babies under 18 months, with the exception of video chatting. Parents who want to introduce digital media to toddlers ages 18 to 24 months should keep it very limited, choose high-quality educational programming, always watch alongside their children, and interact with their children both during and after watching.

“For children ages 2 to 5, pediatricians recommend limiting screen time to one hour a day of high-quality programming that is educational, interactive and pro-social with few or no advertisements. Parents should avoid fast-paced programs, apps with distracting content and anything with violence. Whenever possible, they should co-view with their children to help them understand what they are seeing.

“Pediatricians also recommend that children avoid screens during mealtimes and at least one hour before bedtime. When no one is watching the TV, it should be turned off. And parents should avoid regularly using screens to calm their child, because it can make it difficult to set limits and teach children to regulate their own emotions… In order to develop cognitive, language, motor and social-emotional skills, young children need to experience the world hands-on — playing with toys, exploring outside, experimenting with different materials, and having back-and-forth interactions with nurturing caregivers,” [said Dr. Nusheen Ameenuddin of the AAP]. When they are watching digital media, they lose that time to grow and learn.”

But the habit of living in a world dominated by screens transfers later in life from just television to those nasty handheld smart phones… and have become the way most teenagers today socialize and communicate. The rise in related psychological issues, range from an increase in young suicides to a degradation of perceptions of self-worth and more following of influencers and trends, many of which are, to put it mildly, toxic.

These problems have produced massive congressional testimony to support that toxicity, but truly no viable solutions have evolved yet. The U.S. surgeon general has even called for a warning on social media platforms advising parents that they can damage teenagers’ mental health. But for parents who want to control that access, particularly at the teenaged level, it is an uphill battle… that is often lost. Teens without smartphones and strong social media presence often feel excluded from the world most of their peers live in. But the reality of this notion of “screen dependence” starts very early in life… and are the seeds of that screen additive behavior later in life. Balance is a very difficult lesson to teach, and for many, a more difficult reality to live by… but the consequences of not finding that fulcrum can far reaching and very deep.

I’m Peter Dekom, but as we live in a world with social media-driven conspiracy theories, you really must ask the question as to why most American parents let major screen access replace participating in the tangible and immediate world around our children instead.