Children and Screen Time
October 5, 2015 2:36 PM Subscribe
Maybe screen time isn't so bad for your kids... Here's a summary from LifeHacker Vitals, the tl/dr version of the paper recently released from the American Academy of Pediatrics- "Growing Up Digital:Media Research Symposium" held earlier this year. The full paper is located here.
The Academy seem to be relaxing the rather strict limited time recommendation they've held in the past.
Teenagers around the world are breathing a sigh of relief.
The notion of "screen time" is merely a shared metric so you can help your kid figure out when it is OK to spend hours in front of Netflix or the Nintendo or playing a Steam game.
If you want free range kids, you have to encourage them going out onto the range. And, I'm sorry, but they have not made a game or show yet they competes with the Range in Real Life.
It's a conversation, not a statute.
So yes, we'll continue to limit so called screen time for ecomonkey to x hours a day, and nearly unlimited "go outside and bother the entire neighbourhood with you made up games" time.
That's called a parenting win.
posted by clvrmnky at 3:01 PM on October 5, 2015 [11 favorites]
If you want free range kids, you have to encourage them going out onto the range. And, I'm sorry, but they have not made a game or show yet they competes with the Range in Real Life.
It's a conversation, not a statute.
So yes, we'll continue to limit so called screen time for ecomonkey to x hours a day, and nearly unlimited "go outside and bother the entire neighbourhood with you made up games" time.
That's called a parenting win.
posted by clvrmnky at 3:01 PM on October 5, 2015 [11 favorites]
This new recommendation should have been the obvious (a priori) conclusion in the first place. How could there possibly be discrete effects of something as nebulous as "screen time" (except for maybe direct effects on the eyes)? The recommendations that this replaces are representative of so much that gets in the way of useful progress in the social sciences, and are why attempts to ground decisions in "data" and" "scientific evidence" aren't necessarily a step forward if the underlying conceptualizations are flawed.
posted by patrickdbyers at 3:08 PM on October 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by patrickdbyers at 3:08 PM on October 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
Yeah. In other news, staring at paper isn’t necessarily bad for kids—it depends what's printed on it.
posted by merlynkline at 3:11 PM on October 5, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by merlynkline at 3:11 PM on October 5, 2015 [7 favorites]
We've limited the amount of time our kids can play Minecraft...
... so now they spend all their other spare time writing lists of all the stuff they're going to do on Minecraft in the hour they get to play it.
Still, I suppose it's teaching them to be organised...
posted by pipeski at 3:17 PM on October 5, 2015 [23 favorites]
... so now they spend all their other spare time writing lists of all the stuff they're going to do on Minecraft in the hour they get to play it.
Still, I suppose it's teaching them to be organised...
posted by pipeski at 3:17 PM on October 5, 2015 [23 favorites]
A partial list of games and shows that are better than the "Range in Real Life":
Breaking Bad
Adventure Time
The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Halo 3
The Simpsons Seasons 2-8
Mario Kart (You can't throw turtle shells at your friends in real life. Or at least, you probably shouldn't. )
The idea of 'screen time' as a single, amorphous thing has always seemed weird to me. Maybe it goes back to the previous generation, whose screentime in youth consisted almost entirely of idly watching TV? Now, there's an enormous variety of completely different activities you can do on a screen. Kids probably shouldn't spend all their time watching TV or playing Call of Duty, but what if they're reading about the Russian Revolution, or learning how to make their own video games? Provided they get a reasonable amount of exercise, is it necessary better for them to run around in the backyard all day playing stickball?
posted by Green Winnebago at 3:19 PM on October 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
Breaking Bad
Adventure Time
The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Halo 3
The Simpsons Seasons 2-8
Mario Kart (You can't throw turtle shells at your friends in real life. Or at least, you probably shouldn't. )
The idea of 'screen time' as a single, amorphous thing has always seemed weird to me. Maybe it goes back to the previous generation, whose screentime in youth consisted almost entirely of idly watching TV? Now, there's an enormous variety of completely different activities you can do on a screen. Kids probably shouldn't spend all their time watching TV or playing Call of Duty, but what if they're reading about the Russian Revolution, or learning how to make their own video games? Provided they get a reasonable amount of exercise, is it necessary better for them to run around in the backyard all day playing stickball?
posted by Green Winnebago at 3:19 PM on October 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
If you want free range kids, you have to encourage them going out onto the range. And, I'm sorry, but they have not made a game or show yet they competes with the Range in Real Life.
Sometimes, kids get slapped with more Real Life than they can deal with at school, and it isn't such a bad thing to be able to escape Real Life for a while.
For this Tolkien quote, read "screen time" for "fairy-stories":
Sometimes, kids get slapped with more Real Life than they can deal with at school, and it isn't such a bad thing to be able to escape Real Life for a while.
For this Tolkien quote, read "screen time" for "fairy-stories":
I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which “Escape” is now so often used: a tone for which the uses of the word outside literary criticism give no warrant at all. In what the misusers are fond of calling Real Life, Escape is evidently as a rule very practical, and may even be heroic. In real life it is difficult to blame it, unless it fails; in criticism it would seem to be the worse the better it succeeds. Evidently we are faced by a misuse of words, and also by a confusion of thought. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls? The world outside has not become less real because the prisoner cannot see it. In using escape in this way the critics have chosen the wrong word, and, what is more, they are confusing, not always by sincere error, the Escape of the Prisoner with the Flight of the Deserter.posted by Celsius1414 at 3:28 PM on October 5, 2015 [11 favorites]
Basically, when they study kids, the more of any screen they watch, click, or stab at, the less of anything else they do (statistically) .
That's what they mean by it. It's not /necessarily/ about the quality, good or bad, of the particular screen.
But if you have a kid that will watch a screen all day and never self regulate this, it feels like you ought to teach how to handle that.
It's about having tools.
Who here has never thought they need to step away from the TV or a game or social media? How did you learn that? Would it have been better to learn it earlier?
I know my answer to these questions. As discussed here, it comes down to context, individual, and intent.
But, yes. Screen time as a category is very much a significant thing.
posted by clvrmnky at 3:31 PM on October 5, 2015 [9 favorites]
That's what they mean by it. It's not /necessarily/ about the quality, good or bad, of the particular screen.
But if you have a kid that will watch a screen all day and never self regulate this, it feels like you ought to teach how to handle that.
It's about having tools.
Who here has never thought they need to step away from the TV or a game or social media? How did you learn that? Would it have been better to learn it earlier?
I know my answer to these questions. As discussed here, it comes down to context, individual, and intent.
But, yes. Screen time as a category is very much a significant thing.
posted by clvrmnky at 3:31 PM on October 5, 2015 [9 favorites]
Again, no one is saying all screens are bad, or are the same, or have no value.
I can criticize something even if I like it and see its value. I might be more inclined to criticize something that I feel has value to me, but is still problematic in some regard.
This is not about taking away all the games. It is about learning how to manage this modern life earlier than second year college when you nearly flunk out playing games all night. It's about tools.
posted by clvrmnky at 3:34 PM on October 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
I can criticize something even if I like it and see its value. I might be more inclined to criticize something that I feel has value to me, but is still problematic in some regard.
This is not about taking away all the games. It is about learning how to manage this modern life earlier than second year college when you nearly flunk out playing games all night. It's about tools.
posted by clvrmnky at 3:34 PM on October 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
As a non-parent, I also have opinions about this. Screens allow us to keep the windows open to the air without being bled to death by mosquitos! They are a delight.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 3:38 PM on October 5, 2015 [25 favorites]
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 3:38 PM on October 5, 2015 [25 favorites]
It was always emphasized to me as a warning not about the content (how passive or interactive, how fast or slow, how violent or misogynistic) but about the immobility inherent to using screens (especially the contorted postures that tablets entail). So more than the direct impact on vision-- neck strength, postural control, flexibility and the like. Clvrmnky's caution seems appealing, too, but sedentariness seems a good enough reason to institute copious breaks from screens. Not that I'm having an easy time enforcing it!
posted by mahorn at 3:43 PM on October 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by mahorn at 3:43 PM on October 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
The dubious basis of screen time recommendations ("we can't confirm it's bad or good, so it's evvvvillll!"; "We did a study where poor kids with shit lives watched 15 hours of tv a day, therefore 2 hours is too much!") etc have always incensed me as the technophobic and hysterical nature of the claims was completely at odds with the ambiguous and woefully elliptical research completed.
I always thought it was very telling that there was so much stuff about screen time for kids, and yet nothing whatsoever about screen time for adults. Are we a lost cause? Or is the fact that many adults are doing 12+ hours of screen time a day completely unremarkable?
Additionally, I found the whole discourse rooted in horrible classist notions that glide over the reality of contemporary work and childcare. Most parents I know would love to spend more 1-1 time with their kids. But you can't just click you fingers and make it happen. Mortgage gotta get paid, etc.
posted by smoke at 3:45 PM on October 5, 2015 [16 favorites]
I always thought it was very telling that there was so much stuff about screen time for kids, and yet nothing whatsoever about screen time for adults. Are we a lost cause? Or is the fact that many adults are doing 12+ hours of screen time a day completely unremarkable?
Additionally, I found the whole discourse rooted in horrible classist notions that glide over the reality of contemporary work and childcare. Most parents I know would love to spend more 1-1 time with their kids. But you can't just click you fingers and make it happen. Mortgage gotta get paid, etc.
posted by smoke at 3:45 PM on October 5, 2015 [16 favorites]
If you list an arbitrary first person shooter as arbitrarily better than arbitrary messing around time I feel sorry for you.
And you are just wrong. Halo might be fun for a few hours, but it is one of many many things one can do; it simply is not "better" because that is a meaningless thing to say.
Halo or oranges? Halo or industrial adhesive? Halo or super bright LEDs? These are silly comparisons. (Personally, I enjoy adhesives more than Halo.)
I'd rather I show my kid how much fun all sorts of things are, and hours and hours playing games is not a fair way to do this.
Games are fun, but they are a particular constrained kind of fun, like many other fun things.
But games are designed to make us want to do nothing but play more. Humans need to figure out how to reject this, just like we can't eat cookies for every meal.
So, screen time is a perfectly reasonable way to help a new brain figure this out.
But the suggestion that putting together her own open ended play outside, with all the ludic possibilities this suggests, is somehow less worthy than playing a FPS is laughable.
posted by clvrmnky at 3:49 PM on October 5, 2015 [8 favorites]
And you are just wrong. Halo might be fun for a few hours, but it is one of many many things one can do; it simply is not "better" because that is a meaningless thing to say.
Halo or oranges? Halo or industrial adhesive? Halo or super bright LEDs? These are silly comparisons. (Personally, I enjoy adhesives more than Halo.)
I'd rather I show my kid how much fun all sorts of things are, and hours and hours playing games is not a fair way to do this.
Games are fun, but they are a particular constrained kind of fun, like many other fun things.
But games are designed to make us want to do nothing but play more. Humans need to figure out how to reject this, just like we can't eat cookies for every meal.
So, screen time is a perfectly reasonable way to help a new brain figure this out.
But the suggestion that putting together her own open ended play outside, with all the ludic possibilities this suggests, is somehow less worthy than playing a FPS is laughable.
posted by clvrmnky at 3:49 PM on October 5, 2015 [8 favorites]
Basically, when they study kids, the more of any screen they watch, click, or stab at, the less of anything else they do.
"The more of x they do, the less of anything else they do" is true for every possible value of x. Time passes linearly at roughly the same speed no matter what you're doing.
The idea of 'screen time' as a single, amorphous thing has always seemed weird to me.
It's an overprecious parenting thing that some parents use to feel superior to other parents. It's one part fear of the world and one part desperate need to be above others. Every generation has these things, and "screen time" is one of ours. The fact that they don't delineate between the different things you can do with a screen (building, playing, reading, watching, learning, writing, conversing, etc.) is more than enough evidence that it's nonsense, but if you do need more you can just listen to anyone who is concerned about "screen time". They'll never fail to make their character clear.
I can say with great confidence as someone who grew up basically too poor to have any screens (and before cell phones were a thing) and so spent the vast majority of a childhood playing outside: There is nothing of great intrinsic value outdoors. Life happens wherever you are. Encourage your kid's intellectual pursuits and do your best to participate in them, whatever they are.
posted by IAmUnaware at 3:52 PM on October 5, 2015 [10 favorites]
"The more of x they do, the less of anything else they do" is true for every possible value of x. Time passes linearly at roughly the same speed no matter what you're doing.
The idea of 'screen time' as a single, amorphous thing has always seemed weird to me.
It's an overprecious parenting thing that some parents use to feel superior to other parents. It's one part fear of the world and one part desperate need to be above others. Every generation has these things, and "screen time" is one of ours. The fact that they don't delineate between the different things you can do with a screen (building, playing, reading, watching, learning, writing, conversing, etc.) is more than enough evidence that it's nonsense, but if you do need more you can just listen to anyone who is concerned about "screen time". They'll never fail to make their character clear.
I can say with great confidence as someone who grew up basically too poor to have any screens (and before cell phones were a thing) and so spent the vast majority of a childhood playing outside: There is nothing of great intrinsic value outdoors. Life happens wherever you are. Encourage your kid's intellectual pursuits and do your best to participate in them, whatever they are.
posted by IAmUnaware at 3:52 PM on October 5, 2015 [10 favorites]
Mod note: Folks, if we can have this conversation without making it about other commenters' character or worthiness as parents, it will go a lot better.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 3:55 PM on October 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 3:55 PM on October 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
There is nothing of great intrinsic value outdoors
I take your greater meaning, but I disagree on this point. Getting kids into the habit of being physically active at a young age will serve them through their whole lives.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 3:56 PM on October 5, 2015 [10 favorites]
I take your greater meaning, but I disagree on this point. Getting kids into the habit of being physically active at a young age will serve them through their whole lives.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 3:56 PM on October 5, 2015 [10 favorites]
Perhaps a better rubric would be the limiting of sedentary time?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 3:57 PM on October 5, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 3:57 PM on October 5, 2015 [7 favorites]
But games are designed to make us want to do nothing but play more. Humans need to figure out how to reject this, just like we can't eat cookies for every meal.
You apparently are not aware of the ability of games to teach, to improve learning in tons of arenas, to bring people together whether in person or from afar, to tell stories, to express emotions, to build creativity, and (yes) to escape.
Instead, you've got a weirdly narrow view of what gaming and (more widely) screen time can be and are attacking that limited thing with great vigor.
You are standing in a vast field. There is a strawman here.
> ATTACK
You are still standing in a vast field.
posted by Celsius1414 at 3:58 PM on October 5, 2015 [24 favorites]
You apparently are not aware of the ability of games to teach, to improve learning in tons of arenas, to bring people together whether in person or from afar, to tell stories, to express emotions, to build creativity, and (yes) to escape.
Instead, you've got a weirdly narrow view of what gaming and (more widely) screen time can be and are attacking that limited thing with great vigor.
You are standing in a vast field. There is a strawman here.
> ATTACK
You are still standing in a vast field.
posted by Celsius1414 at 3:58 PM on October 5, 2015 [24 favorites]
With my kids it's not the screentime, it's the massive shitfits they are capable of having if you let them have too much of it then try to get them off. Also the fights they are capable of having with each other over shows and games.
I'm sure it's all cosmic payback from when me and my brother used to be the exact same way.
posted by Artw at 4:06 PM on October 5, 2015 [10 favorites]
I'm sure it's all cosmic payback from when me and my brother used to be the exact same way.
posted by Artw at 4:06 PM on October 5, 2015 [10 favorites]
But games are designed to make us want to do nothing but play more.
Outside of a certain category of mobile games (beware of "freemium"), this is not even slightly true. To use the example you brought up yourself, Halo is definitely not designed to make you endlessly want to play more Halo.
But the suggestion that putting together her own open ended play outside, with all the ludic possibilities this suggests, is somehow less worthy than playing a FPS is laughable.
To suggest that outside is the only place where open ended play, creativity, or inventiveness can exist is the thing that's really laughable. People of all ages use devices with screens for all kinds of "ludic possibilities" all the time. This viewpoint is anchored in a position of tremendous technical ignorance that just feels like making up a game in a Minecraft or GMod server (or, god forbid, learning how to code little games yourself, which is what several kids I know are getting into and isn't really possible on an hour a day of "screen time") is somehow less than making up a game outside, that writing short stories into Google Drive is somehow less than writing them in a notebook that will be lost forever in a couple of years. It's technophobic nonsense based not even on an idea but rather on the feeling that whatever was happening when we were kids is the best thing that could happen to our kids.
Also, clvrmnkey: Please stop inserting two line breaks after every little thought. It makes your posts take up a lot more screen space than they need to.
posted by IAmUnaware at 4:10 PM on October 5, 2015 [7 favorites]
Outside of a certain category of mobile games (beware of "freemium"), this is not even slightly true. To use the example you brought up yourself, Halo is definitely not designed to make you endlessly want to play more Halo.
But the suggestion that putting together her own open ended play outside, with all the ludic possibilities this suggests, is somehow less worthy than playing a FPS is laughable.
To suggest that outside is the only place where open ended play, creativity, or inventiveness can exist is the thing that's really laughable. People of all ages use devices with screens for all kinds of "ludic possibilities" all the time. This viewpoint is anchored in a position of tremendous technical ignorance that just feels like making up a game in a Minecraft or GMod server (or, god forbid, learning how to code little games yourself, which is what several kids I know are getting into and isn't really possible on an hour a day of "screen time") is somehow less than making up a game outside, that writing short stories into Google Drive is somehow less than writing them in a notebook that will be lost forever in a couple of years. It's technophobic nonsense based not even on an idea but rather on the feeling that whatever was happening when we were kids is the best thing that could happen to our kids.
Also, clvrmnkey: Please stop inserting two line breaks after every little thought. It makes your posts take up a lot more screen space than they need to.
posted by IAmUnaware at 4:10 PM on October 5, 2015 [7 favorites]
@mahorn mentioned it specifically, as I did early on; but these studies show that low activity is associated with increase time in front of *any* screen.
Saying that increase time doing x will result in a a decrease in y is not the completing argument you think it is, when the whole point is to understand how urban sedentary lifestyles may impact long term physical and mental health.
Anecdotes about how things were different in your day is also not data.
So, if you are suggesting that increased overall health might be associated with more active lives, then this naturally least to asking what sedentary things are taking up that time.
Instead of wringing our hands over those bad science guys telling us our showtime and games are bad, so therefore if we like those things we are bad, but we are not bad, so the science mist be bad, maybe we should consider how this is intended to be read?
There will never be some perfect parent algorithm for this, but it's pretty obvious that some kids will never do anything other than stare at a screen even if it hurts them. Giving parents the tools they need to judge what is "too much" for an individual situation is not a terrible thing.
Another's enjoyment of showtime antiheroes or blocky building game is unrelated.
Again, many of these studies are not about how you should feel bad because games and TV are bad. They are not about some ideal parenting. They are not about some subversion of common sense, because no such thing exists beyond your individual context.
They are about giving parents the tools to give their kids the tools.
And, yes. Limiting all screens to encourage less structured open ended play is good for most kids. This doesn't mean those screens don't have value. It does imply they have limited value, something that meshes well with my anecdotal experience as a midnight hacker, gamer, software developer and hobbyist.
These screens are great. But they really aren't all that great, and that's OK. They don't have to be super awesome all the time.
posted by clvrmnky at 4:10 PM on October 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
Saying that increase time doing x will result in a a decrease in y is not the completing argument you think it is, when the whole point is to understand how urban sedentary lifestyles may impact long term physical and mental health.
Anecdotes about how things were different in your day is also not data.
So, if you are suggesting that increased overall health might be associated with more active lives, then this naturally least to asking what sedentary things are taking up that time.
Instead of wringing our hands over those bad science guys telling us our showtime and games are bad, so therefore if we like those things we are bad, but we are not bad, so the science mist be bad, maybe we should consider how this is intended to be read?
There will never be some perfect parent algorithm for this, but it's pretty obvious that some kids will never do anything other than stare at a screen even if it hurts them. Giving parents the tools they need to judge what is "too much" for an individual situation is not a terrible thing.
Another's enjoyment of showtime antiheroes or blocky building game is unrelated.
Again, many of these studies are not about how you should feel bad because games and TV are bad. They are not about some ideal parenting. They are not about some subversion of common sense, because no such thing exists beyond your individual context.
They are about giving parents the tools to give their kids the tools.
And, yes. Limiting all screens to encourage less structured open ended play is good for most kids. This doesn't mean those screens don't have value. It does imply they have limited value, something that meshes well with my anecdotal experience as a midnight hacker, gamer, software developer and hobbyist.
These screens are great. But they really aren't all that great, and that's OK. They don't have to be super awesome all the time.
posted by clvrmnky at 4:10 PM on October 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
I don't believe games teach much of anything. Sorry. Certainly not compared to books. I don't think woodscraft is the thing that suffers either, it's books time. I will try to get my kids to read books instead of screening. I will mostly fail. But snide and defensive dismissals that there's any problem at all don't help. That's not what this study says.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:12 PM on October 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:12 PM on October 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
FWIW with the eldest kid it's by far the biggest source of voluntary reading and writing in her life.
posted by Artw at 4:17 PM on October 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Artw at 4:17 PM on October 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
clvrmnky: I guess internet sarcasm is tricky, but I was being facetious by saying semi-random screen-based things are "better" than outside play... in response to you saying that outside play is automatically better than inside things. You're right, one thing is "simply is not "better" because that is a meaningless thing to say."
Halo or oranges? Halo or industrial adhesive? Halo or super bright LEDs? These are silly comparisons. But games are designed to make us want to do nothing but play more... But the suggestion that putting together her own open ended play outside, with all the ludic possibilities this suggests, is somehow less worthy than playing a FPS is laughable.
Funny you brought up Halo in particular. After spending more than a few hours playing the game in co-op, me and my friends would make up our own games inside of the game. We would try to launch ourselves and our vehicles into the air using high explosives, explore parts of the game world that weren't meant to be explored, build forts out of boxes and vehicles, and make our own absurd 1-vs-1 games that were completely different than anything intended by the game developers. Even within a relatively constrained, commercial product like Halo, there can be massive opportunites for unstructured play and creativity. Games like Minecraft, which are built from the ground up to be creative multiplayer experiences, have far more in common with "outside time" than you seem to realize.
Exercise and sunlight is important, but a little goes a long way. And tackling challenges with a friend can be deeply rewarding in its own way, even in the constrained world of a linear videogame.
posted by Green Winnebago at 4:18 PM on October 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
Halo or oranges? Halo or industrial adhesive? Halo or super bright LEDs? These are silly comparisons. But games are designed to make us want to do nothing but play more... But the suggestion that putting together her own open ended play outside, with all the ludic possibilities this suggests, is somehow less worthy than playing a FPS is laughable.
Funny you brought up Halo in particular. After spending more than a few hours playing the game in co-op, me and my friends would make up our own games inside of the game. We would try to launch ourselves and our vehicles into the air using high explosives, explore parts of the game world that weren't meant to be explored, build forts out of boxes and vehicles, and make our own absurd 1-vs-1 games that were completely different than anything intended by the game developers. Even within a relatively constrained, commercial product like Halo, there can be massive opportunites for unstructured play and creativity. Games like Minecraft, which are built from the ground up to be creative multiplayer experiences, have far more in common with "outside time" than you seem to realize.
Exercise and sunlight is important, but a little goes a long way. And tackling challenges with a friend can be deeply rewarding in its own way, even in the constrained world of a linear videogame.
posted by Green Winnebago at 4:18 PM on October 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
The idea of 'screen time' as a single, amorphous thing has always seemed weird to me.
It's an overprecious parenting thing that some parents use to feel superior to other parents. It's one part fear of the world and one part desperate need to be above others. Every generation has these things, and "screen time" is one of ours. The fact that they don't delineate between the different things you can do with a screen (building, playing, reading, watching, learning, writing, conversing, etc.) is more than enough evidence that it's nonsense, but if you do need more you can just listen to anyone who is concerned about "screen time". They'll never fail to make their character clear.
Your characterizations are so ridiculous I hesitate to actually respond, but I do want to disagree with the notion that it's some kind of over-precious concern. What is the screen-time replacing? Usually reading books, or building gross motor skills like climbing, running, jumping, or exploring outdoors, or imaginative play like tea parties and pillow forts. Or one on one conversations with adults where he practices language and reading expressions and other social tools. I have a toddler so those are the things I'm thinking about. I do let my child play on my phone; he looks at photos and home videos, and listens to music, and talks to Siri. But I do limit it and make sure those other types of activities I mentioned are available/possible. If I didn't control his access, he'd probably lay around for hours staring at it.
posted by JenMarie at 4:20 PM on October 5, 2015 [13 favorites]
It's an overprecious parenting thing that some parents use to feel superior to other parents. It's one part fear of the world and one part desperate need to be above others. Every generation has these things, and "screen time" is one of ours. The fact that they don't delineate between the different things you can do with a screen (building, playing, reading, watching, learning, writing, conversing, etc.) is more than enough evidence that it's nonsense, but if you do need more you can just listen to anyone who is concerned about "screen time". They'll never fail to make their character clear.
Your characterizations are so ridiculous I hesitate to actually respond, but I do want to disagree with the notion that it's some kind of over-precious concern. What is the screen-time replacing? Usually reading books, or building gross motor skills like climbing, running, jumping, or exploring outdoors, or imaginative play like tea parties and pillow forts. Or one on one conversations with adults where he practices language and reading expressions and other social tools. I have a toddler so those are the things I'm thinking about. I do let my child play on my phone; he looks at photos and home videos, and listens to music, and talks to Siri. But I do limit it and make sure those other types of activities I mentioned are available/possible. If I didn't control his access, he'd probably lay around for hours staring at it.
posted by JenMarie at 4:20 PM on October 5, 2015 [13 favorites]
when we first got online access i used it to read the secret garden through subscription. was this somehow worse than holding the physical book? some sort of bratz nintendo ds game did the most work in helping my niece overcome some reading issues. programming things in minecraft is infinitely more interesting to my nephew than math class, but it seems to be unintentionally improving his grades there. balance in all things is a good goal, but to dismiss screen time as not imaginative, as stealing time from reading, as reducing socialization seems to lack nuance on everything that screen time encompasses.
posted by nadawi at 4:27 PM on October 5, 2015 [10 favorites]
posted by nadawi at 4:27 PM on October 5, 2015 [10 favorites]
Fans of glowing rectangles rejoice
posted by The Whelk at 4:29 PM on October 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 4:29 PM on October 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
It does reduce socialization; there's no replacement for in person conversation with language development and reading expressions (my son had speech and social delays so this is my area of concern). Again, I'm talking about very young children. I full agree with your other points, nadawi, and believe there are many beneficial, enjoyable, educational things kids (and adults!) can do online.
posted by JenMarie at 4:31 PM on October 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by JenMarie at 4:31 PM on October 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
fwiw, i'm not only talking about very young children - but for very young children, one thing that is part of "screen time" is skyping with far away family. i think your points are good ones, JenMarie and i wasn't arguing against you specifically.
posted by nadawi at 4:34 PM on October 5, 2015
posted by nadawi at 4:34 PM on October 5, 2015
That's true about skyping, my son's grandparents are in India and he does Facetime with them regularly. I never think of that as "screen time" though of course it is. It's not something I worry about limiting.
posted by JenMarie at 4:42 PM on October 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by JenMarie at 4:42 PM on October 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
JenMarie: "Your characterizations are so ridiculous I hesitate to actually respond, but I do want to disagree with the notion that it's some kind of over-precious concern."
To be fair, the "over-precious" remark did come after no fewer than 4 comments from the same user falsely contrasting "screen time" to "free range outdoor" activity - of course, occupation in any activity necessarily takes time away from other activities, and as you note, "screen time" takes away from reading and other indoor play that has nothing to do with exploring the real world without hovering parents. Poking a loud& proud free-range parent about being over-precious is provocative, but so is coming into a thread about screen time and insisting your parenting parenting style is a "win".
posted by gingerest at 4:47 PM on October 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
To be fair, the "over-precious" remark did come after no fewer than 4 comments from the same user falsely contrasting "screen time" to "free range outdoor" activity - of course, occupation in any activity necessarily takes time away from other activities, and as you note, "screen time" takes away from reading and other indoor play that has nothing to do with exploring the real world without hovering parents. Poking a loud& proud free-range parent about being over-precious is provocative, but so is coming into a thread about screen time and insisting your parenting parenting style is a "win".
posted by gingerest at 4:47 PM on October 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
so is coming into a thread about screen time and insisting your parenting parenting style is a "win".
Well I agree with your point there, for sure.
posted by JenMarie at 4:59 PM on October 5, 2015
Well I agree with your point there, for sure.
posted by JenMarie at 4:59 PM on October 5, 2015
I'm an unlimited screen time mom (kids age 12 & 9). However, I work at it. My kids may not know what fork to use, but they sure do know electronics etiquette -- no watching somebody type a password, use a timer & share if there are more kids than devices, play fair, be nice to younger kids, pick something to play/watch that is fun for everyone, don't be a sore loser, no piling on, no racist or sexist remarks. (The last one is harder than it looks - but if not for online games I don't think I would have had such deep conversations with my kids about racism, sexism, and homophobia.)
We spend a lot of time teaching kids sportsmanship when they play soccer or whatever, but it seems like a lot of parents completely neglect teaching sportsmanship in the world of screens -- then they seem so surprised that kids act like little assholes when it's time to get off the computer or give a sibling a turn. It's not the screen's fault.
posted by selfmedicating at 5:25 PM on October 5, 2015 [11 favorites]
We spend a lot of time teaching kids sportsmanship when they play soccer or whatever, but it seems like a lot of parents completely neglect teaching sportsmanship in the world of screens -- then they seem so surprised that kids act like little assholes when it's time to get off the computer or give a sibling a turn. It's not the screen's fault.
posted by selfmedicating at 5:25 PM on October 5, 2015 [11 favorites]
Getting kids into the habit of being physically active at a young age will serve them through their whole lives.
Yes. Which is why we are buying a family XBox and Kinect, so that they will have something active they can do at home in the winter.
posted by KathrynT at 5:30 PM on October 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yes. Which is why we are buying a family XBox and Kinect, so that they will have something active they can do at home in the winter.
posted by KathrynT at 5:30 PM on October 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
First on their list of recommendations for parents is: "Set limits at every age. Limit-setting is key in digital media use — just like in diet, behavior, sleep, and parenting in general. Parenting strategies are the same across various environments, including screen media."
So I wouldn't say the AAP is taking a "don't limit your kids' screen time" stance here.
posted by escabeche at 5:32 PM on October 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
So I wouldn't say the AAP is taking a "don't limit your kids' screen time" stance here.
posted by escabeche at 5:32 PM on October 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
Impact of prolonged sitting on vascular function in young girls (pdf of study)
What is the central question of this study?
Children are spending more than 60% of their waking day sedentary. The consequences of excessive sedentary behavior are not well understood in the child, but there is growing evidence that with increasing sedentary time, cardiovascular risk in childhood also increases.
What is the main finding and its importance?
Our findings show that a 3-hour period of uninterrupted sitting causes a profound (33%) reduction in vascular function in young girls. Importantly we also demonstrate that breaking up sitting with regular exercise breaks can prevent this.
This was discussed on CBC but I can't find audio of the interview (which explained things well) but here is the tiny write up.
posted by phoque at 5:34 PM on October 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
What is the central question of this study?
Children are spending more than 60% of their waking day sedentary. The consequences of excessive sedentary behavior are not well understood in the child, but there is growing evidence that with increasing sedentary time, cardiovascular risk in childhood also increases.
What is the main finding and its importance?
Our findings show that a 3-hour period of uninterrupted sitting causes a profound (33%) reduction in vascular function in young girls. Importantly we also demonstrate that breaking up sitting with regular exercise breaks can prevent this.
This was discussed on CBC but I can't find audio of the interview (which explained things well) but here is the tiny write up.
posted by phoque at 5:34 PM on October 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
My kid will, if allowed, spend all his waking hours hunched in front of his laptop. And so will I. But that is bad for our sleep cycles and our bodies. We actually picked the house we are moving to specifically because it's in a very walkable and bike-able neighborhood. And he and I are going take more screen breaks and get off our asses, because we are not brains in jars and our bodies don't deserve that kind of mistreatment.
posted by emjaybee at 6:58 PM on October 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by emjaybee at 6:58 PM on October 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
My children's school requests no (like any) screen time for kids in the lower grades and if not that then to be kept to a minimum on the weekends. It is an alternative school of which I am a healthy skeptic and cohort by accident of availability and state policy. That said they seem like nice and well-meaning people we decided to make a run at it. Also, since they are powered by rainbows I was curious about the judgements found in TFA.
I didn't come up with the takeaway that they were changing anything in their existing guidelines, more like a group of people met and discussed findings. My suspicion that everybody is glossing over the source material are shit-stirring findings such as "extensive research validating that media violence is a risk factor for aggressive behavior" which is like one of those "the hell you say" type statements. They also make the distinction about it not being a monolith of equivalent experience. Its all of five pages of light summaries, go read.
Metafilter tends to be pretty open minded and individual tolerant except in weird cases, both parenting and media consumption being a lovely intersection for a train-wreck. I feel that admitting to the following is a liability and that's unfortunate given our otherwise open-mindedness:
I feel pretty OK about going along with the school on this at this age. Its not without baggage: my children and I do not share a common childhood with Mr. Rodgers as a neighbor and that does sort of suck. I don't mind at missing the fucking ton of melarky that seems to come from kids more saturated in media; a life free of character-driven merch is a good thing. Their alternative distractions are the wholesome sort of things one would hope for.
I'd write more but I gotta go catch my show...
posted by Ogre Lawless at 8:04 PM on October 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
I didn't come up with the takeaway that they were changing anything in their existing guidelines, more like a group of people met and discussed findings. My suspicion that everybody is glossing over the source material are shit-stirring findings such as "extensive research validating that media violence is a risk factor for aggressive behavior" which is like one of those "the hell you say" type statements. They also make the distinction about it not being a monolith of equivalent experience. Its all of five pages of light summaries, go read.
Metafilter tends to be pretty open minded and individual tolerant except in weird cases, both parenting and media consumption being a lovely intersection for a train-wreck. I feel that admitting to the following is a liability and that's unfortunate given our otherwise open-mindedness:
I feel pretty OK about going along with the school on this at this age. Its not without baggage: my children and I do not share a common childhood with Mr. Rodgers as a neighbor and that does sort of suck. I don't mind at missing the fucking ton of melarky that seems to come from kids more saturated in media; a life free of character-driven merch is a good thing. Their alternative distractions are the wholesome sort of things one would hope for.
I'd write more but I gotta go catch my show...
posted by Ogre Lawless at 8:04 PM on October 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
Yes. Which is why we are buying a family XBox and Kinect, so that they will have something active they can do at home in the winter.
Yup! Which is why my afterthought referred to sedentary time (some of which is both necessary and good! I would be astonished if there were a mefite alive who would tell a child "No! Don't read a book!" under most circumstances), and not the lazy construction of 'screen time.' I figure (as a childless and likely to remain so person, who has nevertheless been more or less involved with the raising of children) that as long as kids spend at least 1/3 of their awake time in constant motion, you're probably doing pretty damn well. Skyping the grandparents seems like necessary 'screen' time, to me, in a way that 7 hours of The Wiggles isn't.
Moderation in all things etc, I guess is what I'm saying.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:50 PM on October 5, 2015
Yup! Which is why my afterthought referred to sedentary time (some of which is both necessary and good! I would be astonished if there were a mefite alive who would tell a child "No! Don't read a book!" under most circumstances), and not the lazy construction of 'screen time.' I figure (as a childless and likely to remain so person, who has nevertheless been more or less involved with the raising of children) that as long as kids spend at least 1/3 of their awake time in constant motion, you're probably doing pretty damn well. Skyping the grandparents seems like necessary 'screen' time, to me, in a way that 7 hours of The Wiggles isn't.
Moderation in all things etc, I guess is what I'm saying.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:50 PM on October 5, 2015
So like, if we create the Standing Desk for Child Screentime, are we all okay with it?
I was at an event a while ago where a fellow volunteer offered to take my infant daughter off my hands for a bit and walk her around while I worked. She came back apologizing profusely that she had allowed my daughter screen time. As in, she was physically present while someone had a screen showing a short video explaining the design of a robot (and my daughter likely was more interested in chewing on her own fingers than watching the video). The woman was so apologetic. omg, this is not the problem everyone is talking about!
I'm a "bad parent" because I occasionally watch my own TV and movies while my daughter is in the room. To be honest, she mostly ignores it. Most of the time I'm on the floor playing with her while something is on in the background (we're both happy!). We do not currently watch kid-TV, though I know that day will come (and I'll let her watch it all on Netflix/the equivalent to avoid ads, hurray!). Society has for a long time decried "using TV as a babysitter" and this whole "screen time" nonsense is no different in the pearl-clutching panic that generates it, but frankly most "screen time" now is far more interactive than being plopped in front of a passively enjoyed cartoon so I guess to me interaction seems the lesser of two evils. Let's be honest, unless we are inhuman SuperParents, we cannot be fully interactive and engaging with our children 100% of the time (and I say this as a currently unwilling SAHM). The 20 minute break for a sanity-saving cup of tea, the phone interview for the job you need, the dishwasher needing unloading, whatever. There is time in the day where you cannot be thinking up the next awesome Sensory Play Activity or Montessori-Inspired Art Project or you can't provide the attention the kid needs to play safely outside and there's nothing wrong with allowing some of that time to be spent doing something sedentary, whether it's reading or a video game or an art project or, sure, watching a cartoon. We'll have an Australia-to-East-Coast-US flight coming up late next year when she's almost two years old and you better believe I'm going to hand her a set of headphones, the remote to the seatback video screen, and my iPhone full of games to keep her as happy as possible while stuck in coach for 22 hours. Or should she be stealing peoples' airline pillows and blankets to build a fort in the lavatory for "creative play"?
I mean as with pretty much every bit of "scientific" advice I've found for pregnancy and early childhood so far, there seems to have been this conversation that happened in a research institution somewhere:
Researcher 1: According to what I've found, it seems [x] is okay in moderation.
Researcher 2: But lots of people are too stupid to moderate [x] and as a result babies will be born with two heads/kids will be academically delayed forever/we'll become a population of mush-brained zombies.
Researcher 1: Okay. "No [x] whatsoever" it is, then.
cf. drinking during pregnancy. Too much of this "just be on the safe side" business is hurting the credibility of the recommendations and frustrating the hell out of people who are genuinely trying to do the right things.
Yes, staring at glowing screens nonstop can hurt circadian rhythms. Does an e-Ink Kindle count, then? Yes, being sedentary for hours on end is bad. Wait, was my reading for hours as a kid bad? How about using a Kinect to play an XBox game? Yes, being unable to self-moderate your use of an addictive medium is bad. So start learning how to as early as possible!
posted by olinerd at 9:34 PM on October 5, 2015 [8 favorites]
I was at an event a while ago where a fellow volunteer offered to take my infant daughter off my hands for a bit and walk her around while I worked. She came back apologizing profusely that she had allowed my daughter screen time. As in, she was physically present while someone had a screen showing a short video explaining the design of a robot (and my daughter likely was more interested in chewing on her own fingers than watching the video). The woman was so apologetic. omg, this is not the problem everyone is talking about!
I'm a "bad parent" because I occasionally watch my own TV and movies while my daughter is in the room. To be honest, she mostly ignores it. Most of the time I'm on the floor playing with her while something is on in the background (we're both happy!). We do not currently watch kid-TV, though I know that day will come (and I'll let her watch it all on Netflix/the equivalent to avoid ads, hurray!). Society has for a long time decried "using TV as a babysitter" and this whole "screen time" nonsense is no different in the pearl-clutching panic that generates it, but frankly most "screen time" now is far more interactive than being plopped in front of a passively enjoyed cartoon so I guess to me interaction seems the lesser of two evils. Let's be honest, unless we are inhuman SuperParents, we cannot be fully interactive and engaging with our children 100% of the time (and I say this as a currently unwilling SAHM). The 20 minute break for a sanity-saving cup of tea, the phone interview for the job you need, the dishwasher needing unloading, whatever. There is time in the day where you cannot be thinking up the next awesome Sensory Play Activity or Montessori-Inspired Art Project or you can't provide the attention the kid needs to play safely outside and there's nothing wrong with allowing some of that time to be spent doing something sedentary, whether it's reading or a video game or an art project or, sure, watching a cartoon. We'll have an Australia-to-East-Coast-US flight coming up late next year when she's almost two years old and you better believe I'm going to hand her a set of headphones, the remote to the seatback video screen, and my iPhone full of games to keep her as happy as possible while stuck in coach for 22 hours. Or should she be stealing peoples' airline pillows and blankets to build a fort in the lavatory for "creative play"?
I mean as with pretty much every bit of "scientific" advice I've found for pregnancy and early childhood so far, there seems to have been this conversation that happened in a research institution somewhere:
Researcher 1: According to what I've found, it seems [x] is okay in moderation.
Researcher 2: But lots of people are too stupid to moderate [x] and as a result babies will be born with two heads/kids will be academically delayed forever/we'll become a population of mush-brained zombies.
Researcher 1: Okay. "No [x] whatsoever" it is, then.
cf. drinking during pregnancy. Too much of this "just be on the safe side" business is hurting the credibility of the recommendations and frustrating the hell out of people who are genuinely trying to do the right things.
Yes, staring at glowing screens nonstop can hurt circadian rhythms. Does an e-Ink Kindle count, then? Yes, being sedentary for hours on end is bad. Wait, was my reading for hours as a kid bad? How about using a Kinect to play an XBox game? Yes, being unable to self-moderate your use of an addictive medium is bad. So start learning how to as early as possible!
posted by olinerd at 9:34 PM on October 5, 2015 [8 favorites]
Moderation in all things, man. Moderation.
But also teaching (naturally immoderate) kids about moderation - that's the rub. If they play six hours of Minecraft at a kid's birthday party every couple months, that's fine, but if they're spending hours a day? They shouldn't be doing anything for hours a day … except practicing scales on piano! Or trumpet! Or your french vocab lists! What about science homework? Don't you have a project due?
It's tough, no mistake.
posted by From Bklyn at 11:54 PM on October 5, 2015
But also teaching (naturally immoderate) kids about moderation - that's the rub. If they play six hours of Minecraft at a kid's birthday party every couple months, that's fine, but if they're spending hours a day? They shouldn't be doing anything for hours a day … except practicing scales on piano! Or trumpet! Or your french vocab lists! What about science homework? Don't you have a project due?
It's tough, no mistake.
posted by From Bklyn at 11:54 PM on October 5, 2015
"The more of x they do, the less of anything else they do" is true for every possible value of x. Time passes linearly at roughly the same speed no matter what you're doing.
Do you have kids? I guess the point is when you add all of it up, because it comes from so many sources, it can easily overwhelm all other activities and kids need to learn to limit this in the exact same way you teach them to eat less junk food by not constantly providing it to them, but by providing them sufficient dosage that they don't feel deprived and conflicted about food.
It's an overprecious parenting thing that some parents use to feel superior to other parents.
That's an overdefensive judgment. I know exactly where you're coming from but really.
There is nothing of great intrinsic value outdoors. Life happens wherever you are. Encourage your kid's intellectual pursuits and do your best to participate in them, whatever they are.
LOL. Come check out Colorado maybe.
posted by aydeejones at 12:19 AM on October 6, 2015
Do you have kids? I guess the point is when you add all of it up, because it comes from so many sources, it can easily overwhelm all other activities and kids need to learn to limit this in the exact same way you teach them to eat less junk food by not constantly providing it to them, but by providing them sufficient dosage that they don't feel deprived and conflicted about food.
It's an overprecious parenting thing that some parents use to feel superior to other parents.
That's an overdefensive judgment. I know exactly where you're coming from but really.
There is nothing of great intrinsic value outdoors. Life happens wherever you are. Encourage your kid's intellectual pursuits and do your best to participate in them, whatever they are.
LOL. Come check out Colorado maybe.
posted by aydeejones at 12:19 AM on October 6, 2015
Screen time of any sort is a highly physically passive activity that involves engaging your eyes and brains on very limited plane with tons of stimulus using very limited physical inputs. I grew up with tons of it, was a total geek who was on BBS's and played LORD and Doom and Wolf3D all of the time, and it took me forever to learn how to appreciate things like riding a bike again, even though I was obsessively into riding my bike before I discovered those things. A life with minimal physical activity is simply less healthy and is suboptimal living as a human being. It took me forever to figure this out, and I was lucky to fall in love with someone who nudged me quite a bit and helped me develop a sense of inner commitment to being healthier and active, even if I put it on the back burner for several years at a time on occasion.
I gotta say, as someone who disliked jocks and meatheads, I wish I learned to like some of what they did at the same time I was loving what I did. Now I'm very much interested in being strong and having a healthy spinal column built by geeking out on tons of fitness research and advice and slowly progressing through a system with regular reward intervals, much like a video game, but it feels amazing and makes it easier for me to enjoy things like riding my bike, walking my dog without pain every day, and playing with my kids when they aren't staring at a screen and aren't "doing their thing" without a screen or my involvement which is important too.
posted by aydeejones at 12:23 AM on October 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
I gotta say, as someone who disliked jocks and meatheads, I wish I learned to like some of what they did at the same time I was loving what I did. Now I'm very much interested in being strong and having a healthy spinal column built by geeking out on tons of fitness research and advice and slowly progressing through a system with regular reward intervals, much like a video game, but it feels amazing and makes it easier for me to enjoy things like riding my bike, walking my dog without pain every day, and playing with my kids when they aren't staring at a screen and aren't "doing their thing" without a screen or my involvement which is important too.
posted by aydeejones at 12:23 AM on October 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
I also wrote my own BBS door games and TI-85 RPGs and had a Pong, Othello, and other silly terrible clone games in production on the PC around the age of 13. They all sucked terribly but I'm saying, as an adult there were times I've stared at screens for work and play for up to 14-16 hours. I often correlate how fun Metafilter is to read (because I haven't been refreshing it all day) with how physically active I am. Working out and learning about fitness and trying new progressive things month by month makes Metafilter more fun and like someone mentioned above, my son gets one hour of Minecraft screen time per day (in addition to other stuff, Minecraft has a carve-out) and used to hate the amount of research and effort that goes into really enjoying Minecraft. Now he reads books, makes LEGO sets, prints out sprites and makes cardboard masks and shit, all obsessively about Minecraft (which I must also sometimes point him away from, like "learn about space for 10 minutes tonight dude, you love that shit"), building up an objective and accomplishing amazing things in that hour each day, as an 8-year-old-in-9-days-year-old.
posted by aydeejones at 12:29 AM on October 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by aydeejones at 12:29 AM on October 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
Finally, I would like to know how hypnotic CRTs were compared to LCD and other modern technologies, because I would often stay up 'til 3-7AM in my early-to-late teens playing NES and Atari and PC games and writing code and watching TV sort of at the same time to the extent that the floors would regularly wobble like the wave-pattern underlying analog CRT technology.
I am having trouble pulling away from a screen right now, with only 6 hours of sleep possible at this point and having heavily lifted weights bro tonight, knowing my gainz bro will be impacted. The struggle is forever
posted by aydeejones at 12:31 AM on October 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
I am having trouble pulling away from a screen right now, with only 6 hours of sleep possible at this point and having heavily lifted weights bro tonight, knowing my gainz bro will be impacted. The struggle is forever
posted by aydeejones at 12:31 AM on October 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
I've been wondering lately about whether my kids get enough computer time, actually. They watch TV sometimes but they don't spend much time on phones/tablets and I guess I wonder how much of that they need in order to grow up to be technologically competent. And, the moderation thing -- I was raised with strict food rules and spent my first years away from home binge eating. I'm a little worried my boys will do the same if I don't stop being such a Luddite.
In short, Parenting: You're Doing It Wrong
posted by gerstle at 12:38 AM on October 6, 2015
In short, Parenting: You're Doing It Wrong
posted by gerstle at 12:38 AM on October 6, 2015
Limiting "school time," especially excessive homework, is what good parents need to do.
posted by Obscure Reference at 5:40 AM on October 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Obscure Reference at 5:40 AM on October 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
The 'no-tech' school where screens are off limits – even at home.
posted by rory at 5:42 AM on October 7, 2015
posted by rory at 5:42 AM on October 7, 2015
"The more of x they do, the less of anything else they do" is true for every possible value of x. Time passes linearly at roughly the same speed no matter what you're doing.
Uh. The point is to weigh the rewards of x with the rewards of anything else. And when X comes at the risk of important child developmental milestones, it's right to seriously scrutinise X.
You apparently are not aware of the ability of games to teach, to improve learning in tons of arenas, to bring people together whether in person or from afar, to tell stories, to express emotions, to build creativity, and (yes) to escape.
There are other skills that children also need to be developing; skills that they will find it more difficult to learn when they are older (compare the ease of learning languages as a four-year-old to as a 40-year-old for instance).
The non-screen ways of learning how to tell stories, to express emotions, to build creativity and (yes) to escape, also include as a freebie learning all those other skills. Things like physicality, the use and misuse of your personal force, the reading of facial gesture, tonal intent and intonation, empathy, non-verbal communication, emotional expression, exertion and over-exertion, resource management, conciliation and reconciliation and many, many more.
Games give you just the skills with none of the freebies. And when the 11-year-old player is 21 and one of the hordes moaning on reddit2025 that it's impossible to even know what the other sex is even thinking #foreveralone, those freebies will be the things they missed.
Or perhaps won't even know they missed. EG:
tremendous technical ignorance that just feels like making up a game in a Minecraft or GMod server ... is somehow less than making up a game outside
Making up a game in Minecraft doesn't teach you the whole panoply of gross and fine motor-control skills that making up a game in the playground teaches you. Nor does it teach you how to soothe the emotions of one of the participants who bursts into tears after they're punched. Or how to read the intent in the facial "tells" of the opposing players etc etc.
nonsense is no different in the pearl-clutching panic that generates it,
Don't do this. People want to raise their children well and that means working where they'll draw their boundaries. It's often difficult to work out exactly what "moderate" is, and science has only got so far in researching the effects and interactions of various approaches. Don't mock them for drawing their lines in different places from you.
posted by bonaldi at 8:14 AM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
Uh. The point is to weigh the rewards of x with the rewards of anything else. And when X comes at the risk of important child developmental milestones, it's right to seriously scrutinise X.
You apparently are not aware of the ability of games to teach, to improve learning in tons of arenas, to bring people together whether in person or from afar, to tell stories, to express emotions, to build creativity, and (yes) to escape.
There are other skills that children also need to be developing; skills that they will find it more difficult to learn when they are older (compare the ease of learning languages as a four-year-old to as a 40-year-old for instance).
The non-screen ways of learning how to tell stories, to express emotions, to build creativity and (yes) to escape, also include as a freebie learning all those other skills. Things like physicality, the use and misuse of your personal force, the reading of facial gesture, tonal intent and intonation, empathy, non-verbal communication, emotional expression, exertion and over-exertion, resource management, conciliation and reconciliation and many, many more.
Games give you just the skills with none of the freebies. And when the 11-year-old player is 21 and one of the hordes moaning on reddit2025 that it's impossible to even know what the other sex is even thinking #foreveralone, those freebies will be the things they missed.
Or perhaps won't even know they missed. EG:
tremendous technical ignorance that just feels like making up a game in a Minecraft or GMod server ... is somehow less than making up a game outside
Making up a game in Minecraft doesn't teach you the whole panoply of gross and fine motor-control skills that making up a game in the playground teaches you. Nor does it teach you how to soothe the emotions of one of the participants who bursts into tears after they're punched. Or how to read the intent in the facial "tells" of the opposing players etc etc.
nonsense is no different in the pearl-clutching panic that generates it,
Don't do this. People want to raise their children well and that means working where they'll draw their boundaries. It's often difficult to work out exactly what "moderate" is, and science has only got so far in researching the effects and interactions of various approaches. Don't mock them for drawing their lines in different places from you.
posted by bonaldi at 8:14 AM on October 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
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This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
On another note, I still remember being weirded out by my classmates, who told me that my "online friends weren't real" - as if they were any more real as potential friends?? I'm pretty sure those same people now use Tindr and Facebook. Living in proximity with another person can overcome some barriers in making friendships, but not if interests aren't shared. #aggravatedsuburbanchildhood
posted by yueliang at 2:45 PM on October 5, 2015 [7 favorites]