There’s no doubt that parenting has changed considerably in the past decade or so. With the introduction of new technology that certainly makes our lives easier at times, there are a lot of questions about how you use that technology when you’re raising your children.
Screen time is certainly a hot topic. There are conflicting views over how much is too much, how old children should be when they’re allowed to start interacting with and watching screens and what they have access to once they’re on a device.
And indeed, this variety of devices is part of the issue. It’s not only about TV anymore; there are laptops, tablets, smartphones, desktop computers and an ever-increasing number of devices that offer visual content to be consumed on a screen.
As well as our children’s usage, we also need to think about our own usage of screens – or so says Emma Brockes, writing for the Guardian. She explained that, as a parent, she tries to keep an eye on what her youngsters are watching and reading online, and said that she often implements screen bans with her children.
However, she added that thinking about your own behaviour when it comes to mobile phone, tablet and computer use is just as important. Looking at your smartphone when you’re out and about with your children can be distracting and mean you stop watching them, and aren’t present with them when you’re supposed to be enjoying time together.
Getting the balance right
Earlier this month, the UK’s children’s commissioner Anne Longfield launched a campaign to encourage parents to stop their children binging on social media and other online content.
Speaking to the Observer, she said that parents should look at online content in the same way they do junk food – as a treat rather than a staple part of a child’s life.
“None of us as parents would want our children to eat junk food all the time […] For those same reasons we shouldn’t want our children to do the same with their online time,” Ms Longfield asserted.
She added that if the likes of social media, smartphones and online games make you feel anxious or stressed “we haven’t got the balance right”.
Her campaign isn’t designed to give you a recommended time limit, but instead to have the equivalent of a five-a-day recommendation for fruit and vegetables for digital content. Based around the NHS’s evidence-based ‘Five steps to better mental wellbeing’, it provides five simple steps to enable children to use technology in a productive and creative way.
The five steps are connect, be active, get creative, give to others and be mindful. The idea behind the campaign is to acknowledge the positive impact technology can have on our lives, in terms of aspects like the unlimited creativity it provides, the ability to stay in touch with people from all over the world, and the chance to learn about all manner of charitable schemes.
As well as encouraging children to engage with a range of activities online, the campaign also wants to raise awareness of appropriate and inappropriate online behaviour. This means encouraging children to recognise negative content and report it, and to understand the importance of staying safe online.
So, the message from the children’s commissioner is that some screen time is fine, as long as your children are engaging with meaningful activities. That certainly makes sense and, of course, there’s also the argument that completely banning screens only makes children want them more.
By allowing them to use tablets, phones and other devices for educational, creative or otherwise constructive purposes, you’re not turning technology into a forbidden fruit.
Developing digital skills
Another official has a different view though. Writing for the Telegraph recently, former GCHQ director Robert Hannigan stated that parents should allow their children to spend more time online, because it will help them better understand the digital world and develop the skills the UK needs to combat cyber crime and other digital threats.
“We need young people to explore the digital world just as they explore the physical world,” he asserted.
Mr Hannigan added that the UK is “desperately short” of cyber skills and that we should be cultivating this in our young people. “The baseline of understanding is too low and often behind our competitors,” he stated.
He said that many parents don’t understand the online world and as a result they fear it. This fear of the unknown is what leads them to assume that it’s bad for their children. However, he said that for the younger generation life online and ‘real’ life are not separate, but intertwined.
But Mr Hannigan said that passive watching doesn’t help, children need to be interacting and doing things online rather than mindlessly watching YouTube videos or other content.
This comes back to the idea of the digital five-a-day, that online activities that stimulate children’s minds and encourage them to do something productive are fine, whereas simply watching video after video is no better than allowing them to sit for hours in front of the TV.
Mr Hannigan isn’t the only person who’s noticed that young people need to develop digital skills to be able to compete and thrive in the future. Writing for the Huffington Post, Christopher Cederskog, managing director for Europe of Wonder Workshop, said that parents and young people alike need to think about the future of the jobs market.
He highlighted robotics and computer automation as areas that could see the jobs market transformed by the time the next generation are leaving school or university and trying to find employment.
Mr Cederskog acknowledged that none of us can know how the world will change in the next 20 to 30 years, but said that schools can “assist their pupils by helping technology to become as familiar to them as the language they speak”.
“Whatever form future employment takes, you can almost guarantee that coding, programming, robotics, app creation and integration will still play their parts,” he added.
While there is clearly support in some quarters for children spending time on screens, it’s clear that this needs to be constructive rather than the passive watching referenced by Mr Hannigan. But it still doesn’t answer the question of how much is too much.
At the beginning of the year, research published in the journal Psychological Science found that moderate use of screens could have a positive impact on mental wellbeing in teenagers, with the first hour or two of this screen time correlating to an improvement in mental wellbeing, the BBC reported.
The optimum amount of time varied by device and activity, ranging from one hour and 40 minutes playing video games, to four hours and 17 minutes for using computers. After this time, a negative impact on mental wellbeing was reported.
Screen time for young children
However, for young children the advice is different. Many experts recommend that children shouldn’t have any screen time until they are over two years old. This is because at this young age, their brains are still developing and too much time spent in front of screens can hinder this development.
Speaking to Psychology Today last year, Dr Aric Sigman, an associate fellow of the British Psychological Society and a Fellow of Britain’s Royal Society of Medicine, explained how screens can affect cognitive development.
“The ability to focus, to concentrate, to lend attention, to sense other people’s attitudes and communicate with them, to build a large vocabulary – all those abilities are harmed,” he stated.
The problem with any interactive screen is that there is an immediate response to your tap, swipe or other interaction. When children are very young, they can then expect this same immediate response from the rest of the world – which obviously isn’t how life works.
As children see their interactions with the screen result in instant gratification, their brain releases dopamine, which is associated with feelings of pleasure. They get used to this instant ‘reward’ and when that isn’t mimicked in real life, they may start to prefer the stimuli provided by a screen, rather than real-world connection.
However, once children are aged over two, limited screen time where they are engaging in creative, constructive or productive activities can do them good. According to Psychology Today, an hour at a time is sufficient and can help toddlers improve their coordination, their reactions and their language skills when it’s monitored and limited to these kinds of positive activities.
This once again comes back to the digital five-a-day that Anne Longfield is recommending, giving parents a benchmark of what they should be aiming for with their children’s digital interactions.
Of course, it’s always good for children – and parents alike – to have time away from their devices when they can interact with one another and explore the world together.
If you’re jetting off on your holidays, you may want to have a tablet loaded up with some educational apps in your hand luggage alongside your travel changing mat, but you may want to consider putting it away once you reach your destination to allow you and your children to fully enjoy the experience of being somewhere new.