How Children Use Media Devices

Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.

Robert Fulghum

How Children Use Media Devices, And What Should Parents Do About It?

Technology use and particularly media consumption has been steadily rising among young children. As this trend has continued, many official agencies and parenting experts have weighed in providing guidelines to parents on limiting the use of these new technologies. It turns out that most of the advice they have given is difficult to implement and may not have been fact-based. 

So while we have ushered in a new age of screenagers, that may be a good thing, or at least not a bad thing, after all.

In this article I want to address two questions: 

1. How children use media devices and services?
2. What should parents do about it?

In 1967 the USA was introduced to a public service reminder for parents: “It’s 10 pm, do you know where your kids are?” It was so successful; it became one of the top 10 Public Service Announcements according to TIME

In 2019, we probably need a new Public Service Announcement. One that says, “It’s 2019, do you know what your children are doing online?”

Let’s see if we can shed some light.

How children use media devices and services?

The most definitive answer of how children use media devices and services comes from a recent study by OFCOM (The UK communications regulator, much like the USA FCC). 

On January 29, 2019, they published their report: “Children and parents: Media use and attitudes report 2018.” The study consisted of thousands of interviews with children and parents.

Welcome to the age of screenagers!

What should parents do about it?

Well, this question will not be so easy to answer. It turns out that there are far fewer facts to support the previously established standard recommendation. Those recommendations focused primarily on limiting screen time, an issue which has been coming under increasing scrutiny.

To remind you. The American Academy of Pediatrics created the infamous 2×2 rules. It meant that there should be no screens for children under two years and no more than 2 hours/day after that age. Many other countries around the world published similar guidelines. Many of these organizations have had to admit that their advice did not have scientific support reluctantly, nor were they likely to be followed in this digital age.

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health conducted a systematic review of previous reviews and published their findings in the British Medical Journal in January 2019. They concluded, notwithstanding a series of concerns, that “evidence to guide policy on safe CYP screentime exposure is limited.”

Nature Human Behaviour, a scholarly review, also recently published a piece by Amy Orben and Andrew Przybylski. They had done some big data analysis and found that there was little or no relationship between the use of digital technology and children well being. The association was on par with that of eating potatoes. Their conclusion? The link was “too small to warrant policy change.”

The advice that was given to parents previously suffered from a variety of challenges:

1. There wasn’t enough scientific evidence to support the recommendations.
2. The proposals were almost impossible to implement. Children with learning disabilities were flourishing with digital access. Moreover, Digital usage is rapidly becoming a requirement for success in modern education systems, and increasingly a path to employment.

So what are parents to do?

First, we shouldn’t think of digital access or screen time as something that’s optional or avoidable. Screens are now part of our digital infrastructure: menus in restaurants, purchase kiosks, ATMs and a host of other digital interfaces are the norm of daily life. 

The reality is that in the digital age, familiarity and confidence with the new digital technologies are a necessary element of the competition to be the best.

No, its never been about screen time. Instead, it always should have been, and increasingly should be based on the value and quality of the content. 

Parents need valuable guidance that helps them realize the advantages of the digital age as well as avoid its harms. The best place for this kind of thoughtful debate and consideration are Common Sense Media, here in the USA, and The Children’s Media Foundation in the UK. 

“The real threat isn’t smartphones. It’s this campaign of misinformation and the generation of fear among parents and educators.”

Candace Odgers

Full disclosure: This discussion is from a WEIRD perspective. WEIRD is Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic and not reflective of the entire tapestry of life and cultures across the planet. Scientific research will have to change as we increasingly pay attention to biases that result from an exclusively WEIRD perspective. Safe to say there is a rising consensus that many WEIRD historical foundational studies on human behavior are not fully representative and should not be used to draw general conclusions. 

Additional Reading

The kids (who use tech) seem to be all right

We’ve got the screen time debate all wrong. let’s fix it