To think current concerns over screen time is bordering hysteria

I’m already waiting for the onslaught of abuse for saying it 😅
It messes with fully developed brains, so god knows what it does to brains that are still growing.
The smart phone and tablet are two of the worst things ever invented and we are going to be paying the price for a long, long time.
The irony, of course, is that I’m typing this on my iPad. What I wouldn’t give to have life back to before it all existed.

It's an epidemic, especially on these brand new, growing brains that absorb everything like the most effective sponges ever created: Basically, instant, unending internet access was unleashed on societies at large without any long-term studies on what that would do to our brains. Now, issues are skyrocketing that never or barely existed before. Social skills have plummeted, and dangerous radicalization is not only easy to tumble into but also fast-tracking dangerous ideologies, and far, FAR too many parents are treating iPads as babysitters/full hobbies/activities rather than occasional tools or entertainment devices. Feel free to look up how predators use Minecraft, by the way.

If you think it's overblown, it's because those of us who genuinely care are trying to get the attention of those who have let their children be taken over by screens but don't want to give up the personal convenience, no matter the current and future cost to their children. I wonder why parents who say "I couldn't parent without this device (that wasn't even around when I was young)!" don't realize that they're basically saying they're not equipped for the hard work of worthwhile parenting and they're admitting a personal failure rather than defending some miracle device. It's depressing, to say the least.

I agree there weren’t iPads but most families had a tv in the 90s! I did and I wasn’t well off!

I’m diagnosed AuDHD and now medicated. The medication is brilliant - life changing - as long as I don’t use my phone. My phone scrambles my brain as if I’ve taken no medication. I’m using it today because I have flu and I’m just on the sofa with a blanket, but on a normal day I can’t touch it because even if I scroll a bit in the morning it really messes up my concentration for the rest of the day. There’s a lot of evidence about how bad screens are for DCs. DS is 8 and autistic and totally addicted to screens, it’s a constant battle. I wish they didn’t exist.

Children have had TV since the 1950s/60s. Games since what, 1980s? So I eyeroll at that. I don’t think anyone my age had restrictions on these things either and we all turned out just fine.

We had other hobbies, played with toys, and weren’t given screens from infancy. 1990s-2010.

Tablets and phones are a different phenomenon imo and are untested. This is where it starts going wrong. Mine were gifted tablets and after seeing how it went, they’re confiscated now.

Totally agree - but you get slammed for saying this. There is just to much money to be made in both tech and health care to suggest a link....

A toddler on a tablet in their buggy? Sad

I once saw on a bus journey a mother with two primary aged children and a child aged 1-2 in a buggy. The two school age children were talking to each other. The child in the buggy had a tablet and no-one spoke to him/her or engaged in any way for the entire journey. And being in the buggy, the child couldn't see anything except people's legs.

Screens are ruining developing brains and I truly believe are a huge reason why we are seeing such an increase in SEN like ADHD.

Just read on another thread about kids going to school,some are swiping books some cant eat or drink independently.
And a lot cant form sentences.

My son was raised without screens he got his first phone call and text and snakes only at 12.
Got a cheap smart phone at 15 hes now in his 20s, he doesn't bother with SM.
He prefers face to face book over gaming, young man old sole.

As someone above said you think back to when we didnt have gadgets, mums and dads still got on with life.
House work shopping work ect.

So I have dc age 17-20. These are the kids that had limited screen time (mainly just tv) when very young, didn’t have phones until secondary and still had pretty rigid rules around screen usage, limits etc.

And then lockdown came and their entire worlds moved online - this was how they connected with friends, spoke to relatives went to school, did homework. So suddenly all bets were off and it’s like the floodgates opened for some of these kids - now late teens/young adults they are addicted to them. They have zero attention span because they are so used to flitting from screen to screen and stopped traditional quieter pastimes like reading or playing board games. They struggle to stay on task with anything (& I see this with youngsters at work too) and want instant gratification in all areas of their lives mainly down to SM influence expecting the big house & flash car, wanting everything new and everything now.

There’s plenty of research about the damage it does, but anecdotally, I know so many parents with older teenagers or young adults who really regret not keeping tighter control on their dc’s screen time.

If obsessed with numbers, did you try giving him a book with numbers for example?

Teenagers playing video games is very different from toddlers staring at a tablet for hours a day.

Screens are the solution to the problem that screens have caused..

Kid gets up a 5am - give him screen = kid gets up at 5am to because he is given a screen.
Kid is hyper - give him screen = kid is hyper because he spends all day on a screen!

Take the screen away as the solution and the problem goes too...

When people talk about screen time, I assume they are talking about phones etc-not tv.

Okay so.

Some kids dont like chocolate.
Some kids like chocolate and are happy with one bar a week.
Some kids eat one bar and crave more, and cant handle the cravings leading to behaviour problems.
Some kids eat three bars a week and are fine.
Some kids eat three bars a week and have issues regulating their blood sugar levels and have energy issues.
Some kids eat three bars a week and get spots.
Some kids eat 1 bar a week during childhood and then eat no chocolate as an adult.
Some kids eat 1 bar a week as a kid then continue to have 1 bar a week and dont crave more.
Some kids have 1 bar a week as a kid but crave more and more throughout their life and develop eating issues.
Some kids have three bars a week as a kid and dont eat any chocolate as an adult.
Some kids eat three bars a week as a kid and then dont bother with chocolate as an adult... etc etc.

Im sure ive made my point.
Basically, we are all different, and will react to different things in different ways, but there is a lot of research to show that screen time can be damaging to kids in different ways, and while obviously yes, your hairdressers dogs boyfriends kid played 8 hours of Call Of Duty a day as a kid and is now a neuroscientist, for every success story there are kids who have behavioural issues from 2 hours a day, or develop focus/attention issues...
Im surprised this is even still being questioned, when children learn to read they all have different wants, needs, capabilities, and we adjust accordingly, im not sure why people think that screen time is either 'no screen time, your child is a social pariah and you knit lentils and your child never learns how to deal with screens' or 'my kid scrolls tiktok for 5 hours a night and they have friends they struggle to get in real life and no adverse side effects'

I think it really depends on general home life and lifestyle outside of screens really as well as the temperament of child.

My oldest plays a lot of Minecraft and some other games on Switch/PC/console, by herself and with her dad. She would rather do that than watch TV. She also does lots of other stuff: crafts, drawing, writing, extra-curriculars. She does well at school, is a lovely kid, happy, curious, all of that. So I don’t really care about screen time if I’m honest and I don’t monitor it 🤷‍♀️

If I had children who couldn’t self-regulate, had behavioural issues, were behind at school, then I would perhaps look at it differently. But my kids have always met or exceeded milestones, are well behaved, bright, happy, do well at school/nursery, socially very able, so we must be doing something right regardless of DD1’s many many hours on Minecraft!

We also made it clear that the moment their grades started dropping at school their phones would be removed. They know we never make empty threats so they never risked it.

There’s some people who think using devices is a sign of smartness because I guess back in the 90s they were - you did have to teach yourself coding, software, hardware.
That’s not the case with modern devices though. Most of those children who play on computers are not even capable of scanning a documnet let alone defragmenting the harddrive.
It’s a mindless pressing of a button. It’s bright lights, fast speed, ding sounds and all the high dopamine that gives you. Consequently listening in class or reading a book is in no way able to hold your attention - not enough stimulation.

To counter your example, I have a family member who was sat in front of a computer from very young, gaming. They did expect him to go into computing. He failed all his exams, is obese, immature, uninterested in people, and has zero ambitions. Still gaming.

I think it becomes a vicious circle and children don’t learn skills.
Obviously don’t know your specific situation but generally screen time is detrimental to sleep and rewarding early waking with fun screen time perhaps encourages early waking. Mine’s an older teen but advice was to keep it calm and boring before wake up time, they used to do a bunny clock for young children so they knew when get up time was.
TV was more in background and children would play.
In restaurants kids got colouring sheets and crayons. Now they have iPad or phone 3 inches from face and are in a zombie like state.
How people coped not that long ago. Less stuff so less cleaning. Lots more physical exercise.
So walk to and from school. A preschooler at nursery half days would do 4 walks a day. Children would help eg setting table, washing up. I helped on a brownie pack holiday with 7yr olds and most hadn’t poured own cereal or juice, set table, made a sandwich. They loved it all especially the washing and drying up.

This.

PhD, and 2 MA’s. Despite playing computer games. Enviable jobs.

We never restricted our DDs' screen time (except during mealtimes) although they didn't get tablets until they were 8/9 and didn't get phones until Yr 7. By the time they were 13 their phones were basically welded to their hands.

They both still passed the 11+ and went to grammar school, got excellent exam grades and went on to good universities.

But they grew up with graduate parents, in a MC household that really valued education.

If a child is growing up in a household with uneducated parents who are indifferent to education then it's going to make bugger all difference how much screen time that child has.

I'm very very sympathetic to the challenges of raising children without the convenience of screens - I'd say it is virtually incompatible with modern life unless you have a lot of support.

BUT that doesn't mean there are not harms. In the 60s young kids were tied up to keep them safe and let the mum get on with washing on wash day. We would never dream of doing that now. But it was a necessary evil at the time. I think screens for kids are just that, a necessary evil - but they are evil.

Depends on the screen time.

If you’re giving your child access to YouTube then that’s very different to putting on a kids DVD. With the former, you can’t trust the algorithms to always show safe material and nobody has vetted the content to ensure that it’s free from swearing etc

Do you know that people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg severely limited their children’s access to the Internet because they understood how addictive smartphones and tablets are? I believe it was something like 15 minutes a day from age 16.

Also are you aware that apps like TikTok come with parental controls in China so school children can’t watch more an hour a day or whatever? Where’s the concern for kids in the West whose brains are being melted with crap because parents are using them as babysitters? I don’t know if babies in places like China are watching things while in buggies but that kind of stuff can’t be good for development. My kids are young adults and things like Nintendo DS weren’t unheard of at long meals etc but there was no sound and it wasn’t for buggy aged children either.

Beside the harm caused by screens themselves, there is an opportunity cost, what kids are NOT doing when they're on screens. One casualty of screens is boredom.
I grew up in the 80s, my mum was a single mum of 3 kids, we weren't constantly monitored or entertained. I don't remember ever playing with my mum or another adult.
Being bored is a very good thing, it's where creativity happens. A mind that is constantly entertained is just consuming, not creating.

The problem is there's no middle ground nowadays. People don't seem to know how to do anything in moderation.

People think 'screens' and think terrible detrimental impact.

What people don't seem to be grasping is that these effects only happen when said activity is done in excess.

It's similar with adults and alcohol and various other problematic things when consumed/done in excess.