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I'm an elementary educator, and the distinction I always try to make for parents is between "low effort, low reward" screen time and "high effort, high reward." Mindlessly scrolling through YouTube is a low effort activity, which is why so many of us (myself included) do it more than we really ought to. Clearly spending some quality time learning a skill, coding, or engaging in some creative affair is clearly superior, even though they could both be characterized as "screen time." The one thing I alert to them, though, is just how much firepower there is in tuning the experience so meticulously to encourage their children to spend an extra minute or two on these apps. And this, I tell them, is the real danger. Not so much the content, but it essentially is a tool that is rewarding their kid for not much intellectual effort at all. When I wanted to not be bored as a kid, I had to put some effort into it: take out my toys, create a story line, put things away, etc. Most of the kids I teach today have no idea what that split-second of boredom really feels like: they just whip out their phone and that's it. That, to me, is the real danger. The kids who are taught to stave off that immediate (but cheap) gratification and instead use the wealth of tech we have today for more productive uses are going to have a huge eg up on the ones who don't. |