Adapted from Integrating Technology by Sarah Gilmore and Katierose Deos
Screen time, as a phrase, is almost exclusively used in a negative context, primarily in news reports raising alarm over the dangers and risks posed to children’s physical and social well-being from time spent on digital devices. In recent years a belief has developed that either all screen time is inherently bad for children, or there is a set amount of screen time that is safe for children, above which they will suffer harm. The problems with these beliefs are that they suggest that all children of all ages have the same needs and vulnerabilities (they do not) and that all screen time is the same (it is not). As a society we use the term screen time to encompass so much, yet it means so little: screen time can mean watching TV or writing a book. Even “watching TV” can mean watching a violent movie or something with flashing lights, loud music, and a frenetic pace, or it can mean watching Sesame Street, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, or Blue Planet. Trying to draw conclusions about all screen time for all children is impossible, because there are too many variables in both the screens and the children.
So, how do we make sense of the research and stories we are reading, and how do we make responsible decisions about screen time in our homes and classrooms for the benefit of our children?
There are three factors we need to consider when we read and think about screen time:
- the age of the child
- what is happening on the screen, and
- what is not happening while the child is using the screen.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released a policy statement in 2016 titled “Media and Young Minds,” which summarized the research into the effects of time spent using digital media on infants through five-year-old children and laid out recommendations for the quantity and type of screen time for children in this age bracket. The AAP advised parents that children under two should ideally have no screen time (apart from video chatting with relatives with parental guidance) and that children between two and five years of age should limit screen time to one hour per day. It also advised that when children are allowed screen time, it should be with high-quality educational apps or TV programs that are not too fast paced, and it should end at least an hour before bedtime. This is because the brains of babies and young children are in a critical phase of development where poor-quality or excessive use of screens can do real damage. As children age, and their cognitive development changes, the risks and potential rewards of screen time change, and the guidelines for safe time limits increase.
However, it is important that we recognize that we simply cannot reduce all time spent looking at a screen down to a single concept of screen time. Reading an e-book is self-evidently different in terms of potential gains and risks than playing a game, and even the risks and rewards of game playing depend greatly on the quality and purpose of the game. Can we really say that reading a book on a screen is less valuable than reading a book on paper, simply because of the medium? Is the time spent playing a collaborative problem-solving game on a screen more or less antisocial than the time spent reading a book alone? And when we see headlines that suggest screen time causes terrifying problems for our children and students, such as cancer, obesity, diabetes, or language delays, what are we to make of those headlines?
Well, the key behind understanding the headlines and what they mean for educational technology use is threefold:
- If possible, read the research the news article is based on,
- bear in mind that correlation does not equal causation (more on this shortly), and
- remember that headlines need to be significantly more interesting and dramatic than the research they are based on tends to be!
Take, for example, this very alarming tabloid headline: “Switch Off: Kids Who Spend Too Much Time Staring at Screens ‘at Greater Risk of 12 Deadly Cancers’” (McDermott 2018). While the headline infers that technology is the cause of the issue, the World Cancer Research Fund (2018) report on which the article is based makes it clear that the technology itself is not causing cancer. Rather, it says, obesity and weight gain are the true danger factors in determining increased cancer risks, and it draws a correlation between screen time, exposure to junk food advertising, and sedentary lifestyles as risk factors for these issues. This might seem a subtle distinction, but it is a crucial one. If we fail to understand the true cause of the issue (junk food, advertising, and insufficient exercise), simply “switching off,” as the headline commands, won’t necessarily help. We need to know what the true issues are so we can take proactive steps to address or avoid them when helping kids manage their social time and meals.
We see this oversimplification repeated time and time again in headlines about screen time, and it comes down to one simple fact: correlation does not equal causation. While screen time might be a risk factor for what it indicates about a child’s wider behaviors, it has never been shown to be the cause of the kinds of negative impacts that parents and teachers are rightly so concerned about.
What we think is finally being made very clear in some research (Orben and Przybylski 2019)—but much less clear in the news as yet—is this: screens themselves, and even what is on them, generally, are not the true cause of harm. Simply looking at screens is not harmful to school-aged children; screens are just things.
What is harmful is missing out on the activities they aren’t doing because they are using screens and the influences they are exposed to through the screen, such as junk food advertising.
The AAP’s report makes it clear that young children who spend hours watching TV or playing games on iPads are missing out on face-to-face, hands-on play and communication time that is crucial to their development. For older children and teenagers this is just as applicable in different ways. When screen time takes the place of regular dinnertime family conversation, that is harmful to children. When screen time takes the place of regular exercise, fresh air, or social interaction, that is harmful to children. When screen time takes the place of high-quality teaching—opportunities to think critically, be creative, solve problems, and collaborate in the classroom—that is harmful to children.
This means that we need to take a balanced and deliberate approach to technology’s use in the classroom. Screens should never take the place of high-quality teaching; they should enrich it, based on student need. Digital worksheets, online drills, chatting, and surfing the Internet are rarely valuable uses of students’ time, and simply going one-to-one (one device per student) without a vision for technology’s role in education is an approach that runs the risk of being more about screen time than learning time. When technology is integrated in a purpose-based, deliberate way, the mind-set, curriculum, pedagogy, resourcing, and leadership work together so that technology is never replacing teaching orhigh-quality learning time; it is enhancing it.
