| Whilst I agree it's hard to generalise and one shouldn't. Now I'm a father of a 3 year old, I'm seeing differences in screen time with other parents/kids. There's two kinds of parents, ones that pay attention to what their kids are doing, and those who don't. We're almost all children of Boomers, who was raised with unfettered access to Television. Our boomer parents allowed some of us unfettered access to the early internet, video games, and television. Some of us were told to get outside and play. I certainly remember that some of my friends had restrictions on Games/TV/Etc, and some friends had no restrictions. Most if not all of the fear mongering about Screen Time is coming from Boomers, not Gen X/Y. That said.. I can easily separate the two parent's when it comes to screen time by telling them how bad letting their kids watch Youtube unmonitored is. The parents who monitor what their kids do will agree with me, the parents who don't monitor will disagree with me "Ohh its fine whatever". The OP is right, the problem isn't Screen Time... it's content. We have a rule in our house, no screen unless it's important, and if it should be shared.. So if my wife gets a text, and we're all playing, she tells us "Oh i got a text message from this person, I'm going to read it and reply". It involves everyone. If my daughter is doing something, we do it with her. All her apps are educational and I've run them through my parents who are teachers with over 30+ years experience. The problem is content, not screens. Reality is those kids are going to grow up in a future where screens are always around. We'd like to think we're teaching them that screens are OK, as long as you include others in what you're doing.. So that my daughter doesn't become anti-social. |