To find it really, really hard how much screen my teen wants

@Galoop I don't want to be harsh, but you should be really concerned if your child has no friends. Screen time will only make this worse and further retard his social skills. Can you join him up to some clubs or something?

I don't know why you assume he doesn't do clubs? He does. He doesn't have any contact with anyone from school or clubs outside of those times. I am really concerned, but don't see what more I can do about it.

It’s 2024. What teen is going to sit and do a puzzle.

Teenage DD1 and I do a jigsaw puzzle for 30mins every evening - it's become a really crucial part of our wind down before bed as it is really relaxing. That said, she is a keen gamer as well and some of the games she plays involve a great deal of creativity (there is one game where she can design a house and then design the clothes for everyone living in it). We are quite strict with gaming time (1hr per evening) but struggle more with smartphone screen time.

Sounds like you're doing an amazing job and his screen time is very balanced.

It's not realistic to expect zero hours per day. Surely you parents also watch tv, use laptops and phones about 1-3 hrs per day? That's the usual statistics. In the modern world it is what it is, to stay connected.

As long as he does other things too, like sees friends IRL, does homework, has interests beyond gaming, does some exercise, he's probably totally fine.

My nearly 14yo has more screen time than this. I'd rather she didn't, as it's just a big ole time thief, but here we are. While it's of little benefit I don't think it's a massive disaster.

The only issue I have is that sometimes she gets shirty if I ask her to disconnect for some reason, but that gets short shift from me, and a reminder that if she can't self manage to some degree then I'll impose my own restrictions which might not be what she has in mind

I understand your anxiety.

My 45 year old brother was and is obsessed with gaming. He still lives a 15 year old teenage boy with our elderly father.

We held out with Smartphones until our dds were thirteen nearly fourteen, (and this was a while back) for all of the reasons you state but after that when their friends become very important to them, I suggest it becomes quite hard because you risk making dc social outcasts and sm almost more enticing if you ban it completely.

Instead we put strong limits in place and both girls had lock boxes where all our phones lived on a bookcase shelf. So at 13/14 yrs phones were allowed for 30 mins after they got home from school. Then locked until they had finished hwk and dinner. Then they were allowed an hour before bed (but not immediately before bed). No phones overnight. And none in the morning at all before school. And at their school, they were allowed phones with them but were confiscated if seen in use by a teacher.

We revisited these rules at sixteen but still phones downstairs with ours at night.

DH and I also did a lot of research (NSPCC and CEOPS) about on-line safety and relayed this info on a regular basis to dds.

It was easier because I only worked mornings at that point and I was able to encourage and facilitate lots of phone-less extra-curricular activities like swimming and dance which I couldn't have done as much if I was working ft like I am now. .

I think you need to be balanced about it and not too extreme because in my day we had separate calendars, alarm clocks, notebooks, journals, radios, maps, TVs, encyclopedias, dictionaries, cameras and calculators etc and spoke to our friends on the family land line phone - and we used them all regularly - but nowadays all of those things are incorporated in to one device.

And the very best way of inculcating balanced screen use in teens imho is to set a good example yourself.

I have 3 teens, well, one now 20s, so just out of teens. Its tough parenting teens, because they now come with free will and opinions. You can encourage, but ultimately i think you need to take that step back. All 3 of mine are gamers. One is also incredibly outdoorsy and will be on his BMX/scooter/skateboard daily and games in the eve with his friends to relax. I wont see him when its daylight generally, hes out and about trying to pull off a new stunt for a new video, edits and uploads the videos too. He travels to all different places to go to new skateparks and meet people he has seen on SM. Another is 100% gamer focussed, he runs a server for one game with 100s of users, runs a large online group for another planning activities and sponsored events, they do day 1 of release events on games and compete to get ingame achievements and world firsts. He manages and leads groups of adults to a shared goal. He mediates disagreements within the group of 40+ people to achieve the shared goal. The third is more balanced with socialising and tech, will go out with mates most days, enjoys hiking and camping, reads so much i fear she will run out of books before she finishes school, draws at a level that blows my mind, atleast 3 hours a day is fully dedicated to revision already a year before exams as her goal is all 9's but is also heavily involved in a game that streams and gets 5000+ viewers on a regular basis, interacting with people and teaching how to do things in the game and now feels somewhat pressured to continue the teaching esp to girls in gaming.

All 3 are enjoying their summers the way they want, but along the way are using technology to develop skills that can be transferred in life depending on what path they want to take. Do i wish the first would spend some more time with us? Yes. Do i worry the second is spending way too much time online? Yes. Do i worry the third is going to burn out as theres always 3 things on the go and putting so much pressure to get grades and help others online. Yep.

But they have to make their own choices. And we have to let them.

Just her opinion as an adult herself. Not allowed to voice opinions anymore?

Yes you are being incredibly controlling , and family jigsaw time with a 13/14 year old is the most bizarre thing I have ever read re teen parenting.

My 14 year old hasn't done anything with me this past week.

She's always on her phone. I thought that was normal?

i think you are right to be concerned. It’s all very well saying it’s the world we live in now, however, the creators like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Evan Speigel were very watchful with their own children.

and that’s before the short videos Tik Tok and YouTube shorts which are basically programming minds for a dopamine hit every 3 minutes. Something we keep an eye on with youngest.

personal experience with an older teen is they were totally addicted to gaming a few years ago. If they’d been creating (ie coding) not just being a (very dedicated) user, I wouldn’t have had as much issue with it. But they were playing first person shooter games in their bedroom continually and it was impacting their behaviour and personality. Became quite aggressive. We took the consoles out of bedrooms into a communal room and we put limits on. We basically broke the addiction. he actually started reading and now does that as well as changed his study habits completely. He does still game, but it is more as part of an overall life. And unfortunately he’s still not over everything eg I think he was using as a crutch instead of real world friendships and that’s going to take a while to recover from.

I’ve just ordered the Anxious Generation.

Absolutely! I don't use tik tok - my own sm use is limited to MN, but I have recently become aware that I am also losing my attention span. And I'm middle aged.
The internet is such a good tool but it is damaging many of us too I think.
I spoke to an 18 year old friend the other day who said she struggles to imagine life before social media. She, fortunately, is into horse riding and competing, so is out of the house a lot and is capable of decent conversation. Even so, everything she does is documented online, and she's often found skulking in the tack room on her phone when everyone else is ready to ride.

And now I'm going to turn off my smartphone and do some gardening 😂

I also think parents are in an impossible situation. Limiting gaming and phone use now has social consequences and no one wants their dc left behind socially

I'm another teacher thanking those parents who are limiting screen time for their efforts. I do appreciate there are nuances and that some screen addicted teens will use their computing and gaming skills to become successful and well rounded adults but I believe tik tok is hugely damaging to attention spans and this really shows in the classroom

I don't want to be harsh, but you should be really concerned if your child has no friends. Screen time will only make this worse and further retard his social skills. Can you join him up to some clubs or something?

I honestly think we're already starting to see the consequences of endless screen time already. Mental health is at an all time low and I can't help thinking that it's a response to a permanently connected society. The games and apps are designed to be highly addictive. I think parents are in an increasingly difficult situation, trying to balance their children's health against the necessity of using the Internet and modern devices.

This conversation was starting when my children were young teens, and smartphones weren't in existence then, or certainly not mainstream. As parents, we were trying to get our heads around all of it ourselves, while being warned of dangers we didn't fully understand.

The use of this technology has swept over all our lives whether we like it or not. It is impacting our heath and that of our children, and as always parents who 'allow' this level of addiction are criticised, but it's bigger than any of us and impossible to stop, I think.

Unlike drugs/alcohol/ smoking, it's almost impossible to go cold turkey. It's more like a food addiction where you're re fuelling the addiction every time you use it. It's hard enough for most adults to limit their own gaming/scrolling/SM use, let alone young people who's brains are still developing.

I don't know what the answer is, and personally I applaud you @Guthealth for trying.

I agree with this too.

Yeah, the poster was really rubbishing the OP’s choices of family activities - Why do some people get to be rude and disrespectful but when an OP pushes back, the response is she’s aggressive

Yeah it's a bit rude some kids love jigsaws

So, the poster telling the OP that (re jigsaws) she couldn’t think of anything more boring isn’t rude?

There is absolutely no need for that response really is there. You are the rude one.

All of your replies are rude in fact. You shouldn’t come in here if you are not going to accept what people are telling you.

If you want to have a relationship with your son as he gets older you need to back off. He will be going to Uni in four years. Will he be allowed his phone in his bedroom there?

Woah that seems an overaction to what I read as a reasonable response. Dial back your aggression!

FWIW I think it sounds like a good mix of screen time and everything else, you're not going to get home way from the screen.

I think the main thing is can you get him off his screen without it turning into a major thing?