Would you know if your kid were turning into a digital zombie? And even if you did, would you know what to do in a world where most of the kids have all the devices, all of the time?
Despite the fact that parents talk about kids and screen time — a lot — there’s a bit of a black hole in how we do so now that screens are everywhere: What is screen time? How do we define it, and what counts?
Seattle Children’s pediatrician and media-use expert, Dr. Dimitri Christakis maintains that when we discuss it and when we limit it, we need to redefine it in terms of our 2020 kids and toddlers. Is it talking on Skype to a grandmother? Is it watching educational programs? Is it texting with friends? Or is it just screen pad games to keep a baby busy?
In terms of social engagement, and disengagement, all screen time is not created equal.
Dr. Dimitri Christakis directs the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute, and he’ll address that concern and more in his upcoming public talk, “What Parents Need to Know About the Digital Addiction Epidemic,” at Sand Point Elementary on Tuesday, Feb. 25, in Seattle.
Not all media has “the same effects,” he notes. But Christakis points out that digital use starts at an extremely young age now, long before that first kindergarten dropoff.
“We kind of immerse children in technology, starting at about four months of age typically in the United States, and for a variety of reasons that I’ll go into it the talk, young children are especially vulnerable to the lure and the addictive properties of touch-screen devices,” Christakis explained in a recent interview with Seattle’s Child.
“And I think most parents aren’t aware of that,” he said, likening screens’ pull to that of drugs or alcohol in older humans.
With the proliferation of smartphones and tablets, digital tools have changed drastically in just the past decade, as have time limit recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics.
“You know, we gave all kinds of advice to parents about how much time that kids should spend, and that advice was really all based on the sort of bygone reality that parents can easily monitor their kids’ use of media — those recommendations were based on children’s television watching, for example, where it was fairly easy for parents to put a television in a central location and then monitor how many hours your children watched.”
Christakis, also the co-author of the 2006 book “The Elephant In The Living Room: Make Television Work for Your Kids,” pointed out that parents are in a tough spot when it comes to older kids and media habits.
“It’s essentially impossible for parents, without the use of assistive technologies, to know how much quote-unquote recreational screen time, their middle-schooler or high-schooler is getting,” he noted.
But Christakis is well aware that we can’t just have kids never use technology. They live in the world, and there are, of course, some clear benefits to being able to use a laptop computer for writing assignments and research, or a smartphone for communication with friends or parents.
“It starts with recognizing just that — that this is an addictive product, or at least a potentially addictive product, that you are putting your child in front of, so they have to learn moderation, much the same way you’ll teach your older teenager or young adult about how to moderate their alcohol intake,” said Christakis.
Dimitri Christakis will be a guest speaker at Sand Point Elementary School, hosted by Sand Point PTA, on Tuesday, Feb. 25, at 6 p.m. The talk, “What Parents Need to Know About the Digital Addition Epidemic,” is open to the community.
