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Is screen time good or bad? It’s not that simple

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Re: Is screen time good or bad? It’s not that simple

#51

Post by finaliteration »

licebmi__at__ wrote: post #50
Sendotsh wrote: post #7

"Screen time" != "Screen time". That's my main problem with all this "screen time is bad" stuff. There's a huge difference between a kid spending 2 hours playing Flappy Bird and spending 2 hours playing with an educational app, or drawing/painting in an app, or watching tutorials on YouTube. 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. Scre…

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 cha…

> 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.

Re: Is screen time good or bad? It’s not that simple

#52

Post by username3 »

jeffrallen wrote: post #43
Sendotsh wrote: post #7

"Screen time" != "Screen time". That's my main problem with all this "screen time is bad" stuff. There's a huge difference between a kid spending 2 hours playing Flappy Bird and spending 2 hours playing with an educational app, or drawing/painting in an app, or watching tutorials on YouTube. 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. Scre…

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.

Re: Is screen time good or bad? It’s not that simple

#53

Post by TeMPOraL »

crazynick4 wrote: post #44
Apocryphon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but how long does it take to read a book? Even if someone was binging on War and Peace, or The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, one is addicted only for a few weeks or months at most- the internet is infinite.

I guess the differentiating factor is the instant availability. You can go to a library pick out one book, and unless it's exceptional you'll only be able to read it for some amount of time before you feel like you need to do something else. With the internet, the "something else" can still be the internet. And with a book, if you're truly binging on it, then youll be done in several days at most for the longer books…

> I guess I can see the analogy but it's still like comparing nicotine to caffeine.

Nitpick, but nicotine != cigarettes, and nicotine alone isn't that (if at all) habit-forming.

Re: Is screen time good or bad? It’s not that simple

#54

Post by TeMPOraL »

tomp wrote: post #36
TeMPOraL wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: Is screen time good or bad? It’s not that simple

#55

Post by hrktb »

jeffrallen wrote: post #43
Sendotsh wrote: post #7

"Screen time" != "Screen time". That's my main problem with all this "screen time is bad" stuff. There's a huge difference between a kid spending 2 hours playing Flappy Bird and spending 2 hours playing with an educational app, or drawing/painting in an app, or watching tutorials on YouTube. 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. Scre…

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.)

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.

Re: Is screen time good or bad? It’s not that simple

#56

Post by Sendotsh »

intothemild wrote: post #34
Pimpus wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 g…

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…

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.

Re: Is screen time good or bad? It’s not that simple

#57

Post by Sendotsh »

jeffrallen wrote: post #43
Sendotsh wrote: post #7

"Screen time" != "Screen time". That's my main problem with all this "screen time is bad" stuff. There's a huge difference between a kid spending 2 hours playing Flappy Bird and spending 2 hours playing with an educational app, or drawing/painting in an app, or watching tutorials on YouTube. 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. Scre…

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.)

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.
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