Screen time really is a big deal

So many parents are trying to navigate their children’s use of screens and social media. But are screens really that big of a deal?

The answer is a resounding YES.

A recent study in JAMA showed that early use of tablets worsened children’s abilities to regulate their emotions. Specifically “child tablet use at age 3.5 years was associated with more expressions of anger and frustration by the age of 4.5 years. Child proneness to anger/frustration at age 4.5 years was then associated with more use of tablets by age 5.5 years.”

So, it’s not just that kids who have difficulties with emotional regulation are more prone to using tablets (though they are). It’s also that their use of tablets in the first place negatively impacts their abilities to regulate their emotions. And it creates a cycle where these kids who use more screens have a harder time with anger and frustration — which means they are more drawn to screens — which makes it harder for them to regulate emotionally — which means they are more drawn to screens…in a seemingly endless vicious circle where they aren’t learning the skills or building the connections that would help them regulate more effectively.

It’s incredibly important here to not blame or shame ourselves. Not only are tech, social media, video games etc part of an industry that makes more money than we can even imagine. But also many of us have very little social support — the beginning of the Covid pandemic is a perfect, if painful, example of parents trying to juggle life and parenting. Handing your child a screen was one of the only options many of us had to navigate the impossible situation of having your children at home and having to work from home or go to work or, for some of us, to take your child to work.

Add multiple children or neurodiversity or caretaking elderly parents or a million different obligations we have in our lives, and it’s not hard to see that the lack of community and social support for many families doesn’t leave us much wiggle room. Devices — more specifically, the companies that make those devices — are more than happy to step in.

And yet ,we know from the study above and many others that children who use screens more have poorer emotional regulation. As our children get older, the more they use devices, the more their mental health suffers. The more screen time children and adults have, the higher their rates of anxiety and depression.  And sleep — one of the cornerstones of mental and overall health — suffers greatly as well. When our kids begin to use social media, their mental health erodes even further. Frequent social media use may even be a significant risk factor for the development of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), which is a mental health condition where one focuses on perceived flaws in their appearance — so much so that they spend almost all their time thinking about them and may avoid social interactions or pursue surgical alterations of their body, as a result. And, though the research on this heartbreaking subject has been mixed, some research has shown that heavy use of social media may even increase the risk of suicide.

For all these reasons, it is paramount that we redefine our relationship with screens and social media. I say “our” because one of the most powerful influences on our children’s use of screens is — our own.

This may sound upsetting or scary (or even just annoying) at first. But, once we let it settle a bit, it is actually EMPOWERING. Since the only thing we can really control is ourselves. And if our behavior (in this case, how we use screens) can impact our children’s use of screens — that means we can influence our kids by changing what we can control: our own behavior.

The conclusion of a study on screen time done in 2020 — when screen use was exploding all over the world, due to the pandemic — showed that “high screen use may reduce the variety of a home environment, which can hinder a child’s cognitive development and/or school readiness.” Yet it also found that “higher parental screen use was also linked with increased parent responsivity, raising questions about the role of timing of viewing, type of programming and the extent to which interactive co-viewing occurs. Maintaining an enriched home environment while incorporating appropriate co-viewing behaviors may be the way to navigate parenting in the prospective future.”

This idea of sharing, connecting, and co-viewing around programming is a reframe of the role devices often play in our homes. Instead of being something we get sucked into, isolated with, and experiencing no real human connection around — “co-viewing” offers us a human and connected experience despite (and maybe because of?) the screens we are using.

As always, how we use screens may be the key to all of it. Are we using screens to self-soothe, escape, compare ourselves to others, or even divide ourselves from others? Or are we using it to truly connect? Are we robbing ourselves of actual, present human connection because we are satiated enough by the texts and posts of our friends? Does that social hunger get fed enough by those relatively empty calories of online connection, which keep us from reaching out for the actual, physical, nourishing companionship that we all need?

When the world shut down in 2020, screens and even social media seemed like a lifeline that kept us connected. But did we get to accustomed to the electronic connection and forget that actual, in-real-life connection was our deeper, more fundamental need?

Only you and your family can answer these questions for yourselves. If you are willing to take a real and honest look at how you use screens and how it impacts your health and relationships (or lack of pursuit of actual relationships), you can make immensely powerful changes that will lead to better health and connection for your whole family.