Every generation has its own set of unique challenges. Ours, I’m convinced, is the challenge of tech addiction. This new and uncharted territory is made more perplexing given that today’s parents represent the final generation that experienced an analog childhood while their offspring mark the first generation of digital natives. It truly is a great divide.
My own ’90s childhood experience was marked with bug bites and tan lines, running door to door until a neighborhood friend could come out and play, and reading under the covers far after bedtime. TV and a Super Nintendo had their place, but with only one family television, compromise with siblings was a given. And when an approved show was over, it was time to turn things off.
Now consider the current landscape for children. The average American child spends roughly seven minutes outside a day. However, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the same child spends more than seven-and-a-half hours a day on screens. Over the course of a year, this adds up to more than 114 days spent purely in the digital world. It’s important to note that this time doesn’t include educational screen time, such as computer class or digital homework. If you find yourself scratching your head and wondering how that time adds up given a full school day, join the crowd. Our children are spending as much time on screens as the average adult spends working full time. And the results are sobering.
Side effects of screen overuse include obesity, sleep deprivation, anxiety, depression, mental health issues, delayed speech and reading, social incompetence, myopia, motor deficits and scoliosis to name a few. Yikes! It’s important to note that adults aren’t immune to these issues—far from it. But the life-altering side effects on the developing brain of a child cause far more profound issues. Given all the data available, it’s even more alarming that screen overuse is so normal.
As parents, we have the responsibility to fight for our children’s right to experience a childhood full of wonder, adventure and imagination, unstructured play, exercise and good books. This can’t take place when kids all day long are on screens that compete for their time and energy. This is a battle worth fighting for.
Not a Fair Fight
Technology can be harnessed for good or bad. But that doesn’t make a device itself neutral. As Tristan Harris, a former Google design ethicist says, the problem isn’t that people are simply lacking willpower. Instead, it has more to do with the fact that “there are a thousand people on the other side of the screen whose job it is to break down the self-regulation you have.”
Previous generations had natural stopping cues for tech time. When your favorite show was over, a commercial aired and you chose to either opt in or out of the next show. If you didn’t like the option, you turned it off and found something to do. Our children, in contrast, have never experienced digital boundaries. Every episode and every season of every show is made readily available 24/7 on some streaming platform. There is no need to wait a week to watch a show. And a critical change launched in 2012 when Netflix introduced the autoplay option. Now instead of choosing to watch another episode, you have to choose not to watch—cue binge-watching! YouTube and social media offer similar bottomless experiences, where you can scroll indefinitely without ever finding an end. Children may look for stopping cues but will never find them online. It’s up to parents to provide the stopping cue for them.
In addition to the never-ending nature of the cyber world, there’s another culprit for dangerous digital habits: intermittent variable rewards. The brain releases far more dopamine when a reward comes unpredictably. Digital currency—likes, comments and reactions—coming when we least expect them mean our drive to check a device goes up. Each reward provides such a strong pleasure response that it’s no surprise our children don’t want to stop watching videos or playing video games. As Emily Cherkin says in her book The Screen Time Solution, “The reason our screen time battles feel more fraught every time is that each new dopamine surge isn’t as intense as the previous one. Our children need to stay on longer to get that same level of feel-good hormones, which means spending more time on their devices. This results in an even bigger fight with parents when screen time is over.”
Tech isn’t going anywhere, and for most people, living a life fully unplugged is unfeasible. Many schools require some form of online learning such as homework completed on iPads or school-issued laptops, and many extracurriculars use apps as a means of contact for both parents and students. Our goal as parents is not to be anti-tech; it’s to be pro-child. We have a mere 18 summers with our kids. How do we want to spend that time with them? Is tech bringing us closer as a family, or is it driving us further apart?
The Myth of Safety
One of the primary reasons parents get their child a smartphone or smartwatch is because they want access to their child to ensure he’s safe. It’s an understandable response. But does accessibility truly equal safety? Cherkin argues that what it actually does is increase the risk of a child’s experiencing true harm via pornography exposure, cyberbullying, harmful content, violence, sexual predators, privacy breaches and data violations. Filtering services, special routers and parental controls are all good precautions. But if they’re the only tools used, kids can still get into a world of trouble, both intentionally or by accident. Monitoring usage can quickly become a full-time job for a parent, and kids are smart enough to easily override a system. Devorah Heitner, author of Growing Up in Public: Coming of Age in the Digital World, says parents must be the mentors, not just the monitors. It’s important that we are in active and ongoing conversation about the risks that come with online activity.
So just when should kids get their first phone? Experts recommend that until you’re comfortable with your kids’ encountering pornography, it’s best to hold off. When giving your children a device, you think you’re offering them the world. But in reality, you’re offering your children to the world.
Book Resources for Tech Wellness
- Digital Madness by Dr. Nick Kardaras
- Disconnected by Thomas Kersting
- Glow Kids by Dr. Nick Kardaras
- Screen Kids by Gary Chapman and Arlene Pellicane
- Screen Wise by Devorah Heitner
- The Screentime Solution by Emily Cherkin
- Until the Street Lights Come On by Ginny Yurich
Smartphone Alternative Devices
- Gabb
- Bark
- Pinwheel
- Light Phone
Lauren Greenlee is a boy mom of four that is passionate about preserving the best aspects of childhood. She writes from her Olathe home.