Raise your hands if one of your biggest pain points as a parent is conflict with your child regarding screentime. We are all too familiar with the tussle about screentime, whether it’s limits to Brawl Stars or Instagram, or monitoring on WhatsApp and the persistent gaming – disagreements about overindulging in screens can cause relationships to be strained.
Raising Healthy, Smart, Kind Kids in a World of Screens
I heard from Dr Michael Rich, a pediatrician, child health researcher, and children’s media specialist on his take on raising healthy, smart, kind kids in a world of screens. The title of the talk sounded ironic to me at first. Can kids choose to use screens in a fruitful and beneficial way? Dr Rich gave an interesting perspective at his talk, organised by Centre for Healthy & Sustainable Cities, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at NTU.
Dr Michael Rich is the founder and director of Digital Wellness Lab, based in Boston Children’s Hospital. he is also the founder of the Clinic for Interactive Media and Internet Disorders, the first evidence-based clinical program designed to address Problematic Interactive Media Use (PIMU) in children, adolescents and young adults.
The Significance of Screentime and FOBLO
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The media usage of kids was found to be averaging 8.5 hours daily. Undoubtedly, the pandemic has fuelled screen use and increased the reliance on screens as parents juggled their work responsibilites from home.
Teens rely on their devices even more, with 54% of those surveyed admitting that it was hard to give up social media while 84% check their devices hourly. 1 in 6 check theirs every five minutes. The ease of technology meant that it enables anyone to connect with anybody, anywhere at any time. This has resulted in fear of missing out (FOMO) or the fear of being left out (FOBLO) when texts and comments are left unanswered.
Overreliance on the screen and devices has eroded meaningful connectness. The usage of devices ironically has come in between people since it is easier to text than to talk to someone IRL – in real life. Likewise, teens and children connect through gaming and Social Media and are able to find their identity online, connect easily to like-minded peers. Best of all, they are independent from the adults in their lives.
However, the human brain in adolescence has not fully developed. This means children and teens lack the executive function skills to manage their device use, and are prone to using the screen excessively to interact with others.
Four Main Areas of Screentime Concern
Dr Rich shared about the four main complaints related to screentime use.
1. Video Gaming: Excessive gaming on a computer, console, mobile device, displacing sleep, homework, meals, family time, and exercise. Child or teen may become defiant or aggressive when asked to stop.
2. Social Media: Using social media as the primary way to connect with others instead of face-to-face communication, other examples include doom scrolling, trolling, cyberbullying, sexting.
3. Info Bingeing: Following threads of online forums, blogs, binge-watching of short- and long-form videos in place of other activities
4. Pornography: Meet sexual needs using pornography, resulting in retardation and confusion of sexual development
Do these issues sound familiar? Even adults exhibit such behaviour, and face problems when curbing excessive device usage. What more children and teenagers?
How To Manage Overuse of Screentime
One aspect about screentime usage that Dr Rich emphasized was not to approach the digital world with a negative perspective. Like many parents, we tend to put the blame on the internet or devices. But the issue is the connections online that draw kids and teens to their digital habits.
Rather than promote abstinence as it is often unrealistic and impractical (also because our education system relies on digital devices), self-regulation is the key. The driver of the behaviour is often psychological – whether it’s anxiety or ADHD and other mood disorders. As the adolescent spends too much time on social media or gaming, it affects their social life and exacerbates social comparison resulting in more mental health issues. This also affects familial ties and friendship as social relations are given up.
Games and apps are also created to fuel the behaviour, or behavioural manipulation as Dr Rich called it. Game creators make money from getting players to keep playing and carefully designed to do that. Hence Dr Rich advises parents to sit down with their children, go through the techniques and demystify the game together.
5 Ms of Digital Wellness
Traversing both the physical and digital worlds take much effort. As a parent with a tween and teen, it can be very overwhelming managing all of it. Hence, I appreciated Dr Rich’s sharing and very practical tips. He stressed parents should be present in their children’s digital lives, just as they are present in their physical lives.
There are five Ms of digital wellness for parents. The first M is to model the behaviour. Instead of staring at emails on the smartphone and yelling at your child to turn off the videos, pay attention to your child without using a device. Dr Rich’s adolescent patients often wish their parents pay more attention to them.
Next – Mentor. Try out new devices, new platforms, new apps with curiosity not with shame or judgement. Parents might resist doing this and refrain from the dialogue that is essential. As a mentor, learn from the mentee and vice versa. For instance, if the child asks for a smartphone, have a dialogue about using it responsibly and respectfully. The role of mentors is to help your child with executive function that your child may not have. Being open and curious also encourages your child to be honest about inappropriate content they chanced upon.
The third M is Monitor. Monitoring online lives come with good intentions. This also prevents the child from unhealthy digital behaviour. This is different from policing behaviour but truly supporting your child’s success and ability to be healthier, smarter and closer to you. Next, make Memories and spend time doing things in real life. Whether it’s a walk, trying a new recipe, spending time with other people are things that are helpful and represents what it means to be human.
Finally, Master the environment. Lean in to use the internet effectively, this is a powerful tool that should not be feared.
Recommendations for Parents
The answer that parents want in tackling screentime issues is complex. Since there is no simple answer, there are some recommendations parents could heed. First, use media with your youth, learn from and teach them.
Dr Rich believes in using the devices to develop critical thinking. For instance, as we move into Gen AI, how do we decipher deep fakes? How do we check against our life experiences?
Instead of screentime limits, talk with your child about their 24-hour day. How much do we fill it up with sleep, and how much of it is screentime. One interesting point to raise is to remind the teens they only grow when they sleep, hence sleep should be prioritised given how they will experience the second most rapid growth spurt in their lives.
Encourage your child to create meaningfully using the device. Chances are college admissions officers are reviewing your child’s social media profile. Hence, being mindful in the use of screens and having a purpose in screentime is a must. Nothing ever gets really deleted on the internet – fact.
Also, be conscious about having minimum screen-free time. Do sports, take a walk, develop other skills. Boredom can be a great thing. Einstein was an amazing inventor because he made use of his boredom.
The dialogue regarding digital devices is an ongoing one. This helps children to understand the digital world is an extension of the larger world where there are upsetting things, confusing things. Parents can help children learn to navigate the world.
Teaching children to be digitally literate is an essential lifeskill. Ask questions like who is posting the content? How do they want me to behave? What information are they omitting?
To help parents and the community, Dr Rich shared resources that could help as we traverse the phygital world.
Digital Wellness Tools for All
Find out more about resources and research on digital wellness from the Digital Wellness Lab website. From tips for teens to insights to social gaming, there are many insights to learn especially as parents are caught in the whirlwind of the digital overload.
You can also read Dr Michael Rich’s book on A Joyful Approach to Raising Healthy, Smart, Kind Kids in a Screen-Saturated World on a science-backed approach raising a child well (and to raise a well child) in the digital age.
We also have a Tween device contract you can download before you entrust your tween/teen with a device.
